Aspirin isn’t the ‘wonder drug’ you may think it is

Is there any drug that tries to look more innocent than aspirin?

You can buy it in all sorts of fun colors and flavors. On the Bayer bottles there’s even that well-advertised slogan: “The Wonder Drug.”

But more research is proving that aspirin is no miracle medicine – it’s a sledgehammer to your gut that could leave you with debilitating pain or a life-threatening bleed.

And the only wonder is that the mainstream keeps inventing excuses to keep us popping these dangerous pills.

Dr. Steve Nissen from the Cleveland Clinic calls the “vast majority” of Americans who take aspirin to prevent a heart attack the “worried well.”

And there are plenty of them. Nearly half of Americans between the ages of 45 and 75 who have never had a heart attack are still taking aspirin.

But lots of them are quickly becoming the worried not so well.

Long-term aspirin use seriously ups you chance of ulcers, gastro-intestinal hemorrhages and bleeding in your brain. A major Italian study showed aspirin can increase your chance of a brain bleed by a frightening 54 percent.

And that’s even at low doses.

In fact, research is now showing that a daily aspirin is just as likely to cause a serious, potentially life-threatening side effect as it is to prevent a heart attack.

In statistical terms, they call that a net benefit of zero. Some wonder drug.

Even the FDA, an agency that always errs on the side of Big Pharma, says that unless you’ve had a heart attack or stroke, the benefits of a daily aspirin don’t outweigh the serious risks. They even rejected an application from Bayer to claim aspirin can prevent heart attacks.

But, unfortunately, aspirin has the best PR machine in the health industry and we’ll keep being inundated with stories about its wonders. There was even a study making the media rounds at the end of April claiming aspirin cuts your cancer risk.

Even the feds tapped the brakes on that one. The National Institutes of Health points out that plenty of studies have failed to prove that aspirin does anything to keep you from developing or dying of cancer.

When it comes to aspirin, always dig around and do the math. Most of the time you’ll find lots of hype, and plenty of promises this “wonder drug” can’t keep.

Sources:

“Maybe you should rethink that daily aspirin” Maanvi Singh, April 27, 2015, NPR, npr.org