Does anyone take daily supplements of low-dose aspirin? It is supposed to be very beneficial to your health. On that note, are you supposed to keep high-dose aspirin in first-aid kits to help with heart attacks? I’ve also heard of white willow.
I have high cholesterol and a family history of heart disease, so my doctor suggests I take an aspirin a day (in addition to other diet and meds, of course!).
The “recommended dose” is a children’s aspirin, which is 1/4 of a regular aspirin.
Since that size is obviously arbitrary, I think paying extra for the “reduced dosage” pills is a rip off by Bayer to ream the gullible.
So I just take one regular aspirin every other day. Still only a small fraction of the allowable dose.
Willow contains small amounts of the acid that was the origin of aspirin, but is now just an expensive novelty. For health food stores to ream the gullible.
I take one 325mg aspirin a day (at the recommendation of my doctor), which I think is a regular sized pill (but maybe a full dose is 2 pills). In addition to the normal benefits, it is to offset the side affects of the niacin I have to take, which causes skin redness and flushing (when I forget the aspirin).
For people of either sex who’ve had a stroke or heart attack (or warning signs of either), there is a benefit in taking 81 mg of aspirin each day.
For men, but not women, who have NOT had stroke or heart attack (or warning signs of either), there is also a benefit. In the case of women, though, there is little or no net benefit (see here).
Well, it does note “Subgroup analyses showed that aspirin significantly reduced the risk of major cardiovascular events, ischemic stroke, and myocardial infarction among women 65 years of age or older.” So if you’re 45-65, aspirin doesn’t seem to make much difference.
Aren’t there drawbacks in blood thinning or stomach bleeding, something like that? I’m a young man with excellent, bordering on low blood pressure. I don’t take aspirin like that and I also don’t take anti-inflammitories as much as I’d like because of the stomach issue.
Yes, but those results were of borderline statistical significance, especially when you look at each endpoint individually. It’s only when you lump all possible CV events in that subgroup together, that unequivocal statistical significance is achieved.
Yes, and that’s why nobody should use them unless the potential benefits outweigh the risks of things like bleeding from your stomach.
Amen Brother! Preach it!
I’ve had two patients just in the last two weeks with intractable nosebleeds that I couldn’t control until I got them off of aspirin. Finally, after the effects wore off, they stopped with the daily hemorrhages. And I stopped with the vacuuming out clots, packing, and cautery.
There is some evidence that regular low-dose aspirin suppresses formation of colon polyps and may thus reduce the risk of colon cancer. Cite.
Given the potential for aspirin causing gastrointestinal bleeding in some people and not entirely conclusive evidence on the colon cancer angle, it is still not recommended that everyone take daily aspirin for this purpose.
I do though.
The antiplatelet effect of Acetylsalicylic acid (aspirin) benefits many people, including my young daughter, but as with all medication, you should weigh the risk to benefit ratio before taking it long term. Among other things, aspirin (and other NSAID’s) are one cause of peptic ulcers.
always remember:
there’s no such thing as a risk free medical intervention.
you can never do merely one thing.
My best childhood friend used aspirin whenever something hurt, including her periods. She would sometimes pop a whole tube (20 pills) in one day.
Primary result: bleeding stomach ulcer.
Secondary result: a career in medicine. She agrees that getting interested in medicine because of something less painful would have been nice, though.
Another friend happened to deliver her daughter at a time when the hospital’s maternity wing was full. They sent her over to trauma, which had open beds. She kept complaining of headaches. One of the trauma nurses gave her the softest painkiller they usually gave around trauma: aspirin. Friend died 
The headaches were caused by small hemorrages to her cranium caused by the efforts during birth, aspirin increased the bleeding (that’s the explanation we were given, it may or may not be accurate and IANAD). This is actually a well-documented phenomenon and known contraindication, but the nurses weren’t used to dealing with postpartum patients and were used to thinking of aspirin as harmless.
Like any medication, please handle with care and under medical control!
Dr. Poo you have one of the cuteist kids ever. How’s she doing now?
Since nobody else seemed to comment on this: No, keeping a mega-aspirin or two in your first aid kit in case of heart attack won’t help much.
Au contraire. If you think you’re having a heart attack, first thing you should do is call 911, and the second is chew up and swallow some aspirin. N’est-ce pas, Drs. Gauss and Mercotan?
I agree.
There’s a good deal of evidence to show that the early administration of aspirin for someone who may be having a heart attack (what we’d now call an Acute Coronary Syndrome) prevents death and prevents the heart attack in the first place (i.e. prevents “unstable angina” from progressing into a finished heart attack). I think this is the earliest good study to show all this, but I could very well be wrong.
Yuppers. If you’re not already taking aspirin regularly.
paramedics often give aspirin in the wagon, and if they don’t we do upon arrival in the ED. However, we give standard doses, up to 325 mg chewed if possible, not a “mega-aspirin.” I’m not sure what ethilrist meant by that, but gobbling a bunch of aspirin won’t help.