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The FDA recently reversed its position on taking daily aspirin if you havent had a heart attack,
concluding that the risks outweigh the benefits
Scientific studies have failed to prove that low-dose aspirin offers safe and effective protection
from cardiovascular disease
Aspirin can lead to serious medical problems such as gastrointestinal and intracranial bleeds,
ulcers, kidney failure, blindness, and many more
A safer, more effective approach to heart health is reducing chronic inflammation through diet,
exercise, sun exposure, and grounding yourself to the earth
By Dr. Mercola
If you haven't had a heart attack, step away from the aspirin bottle... If you are one
of the 40 million Americans who take an aspirin every day, you may want to heed
the latest warning from the US Food and Drug Administration (FDA).
After many decades of promoting aspirin, the FDA now says that if you have not
experienced a heart problem, you should not be taking a daily aspirineven if you
have a family history of heart disease. This represents a significant departure from
FDA's prior position on aspirin for the prevention of heart attacks.
"FDA has concluded that the data do not support the use of aspirin as a
preventive medication by people who have not had a heart attack,
stroke or cardiovascular problems, a use that is called 'primary
prevention.' In such people, the benefit has not been established but
risks such as dangerous bleeding into the brain or stomach are
still present."
Their announcement was prompted by Bayer's request to change its aspirin label
to indicate it can help prevent heart attacks in healthy individuals. Aspirin
generated $1.27 billion in sales for Bayer last year,3 and from Bayer's request, it
appears they want everyone to be taking their drug.
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But the FDA says "not so fast"and rightly so. Evidence in support of using aspirin
preventatively has gone from weak to weaker to nonexistent. This is why I've been
advising against it for more than a decade. It looks as though aspirin, even "low-
dose aspirin" (LDA), may do far more harm than good.
In fact, it is debatable whether or not aspirin has ANY protective benefits against
cardiovascular disease, even if you have suffered a heart attack or stroke. Recent
scientific studies have uncovered a number of serious side effects, suggesting that
whatever aspirin may offer may be overshadowed by its risks, especially when
safer natural alternatives exist.
As is true for nearly all medications, the longer we watch for side effects, the more
we tend to findeven for drugs like aspirin that have been around for more than
100 years. Just because aspirin is an over-the-counter drug and has been around
for more than a century does not mean that it's harmless.
Nearly 10 years ago, Dr. John G. F. Cleland, a cardiologist from the University of
Hull in the UK, wrote an excellent article published in the British Journal of
Medicine4 casting doubt upon the efficacy of aspirin therapy for prevention of heart
attacks.
The number of non-fatal events may be reduced, but the number of sudden deaths
is actually increased, because what most physicians don't realize is that
surprisingly aspirin can mask a cardiac event in progress.
Dr. Cleland also found that studies touting aspirin's benefits are seriously flawed
and interpretation of those studies is biased. Since Cleland's original study, a
deluge of scientific studies have further exposed aspirin's failure, which I have
summarized in the next few sections.
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aspirin may do more harm than good. Regardless of whether you're a man,
woman, or diabetic, aspirin has failed miserably. This list of studies is not
comprehensive. You will find much more information in the GreenMedInfo
database, which lists more than 60 articles about aspirin's toxic effects.6
Significant Cardiovascular
Study
Findings
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Aspirin also increases your risk for a brain bleed, especially if you are older. One
study found a high mortality rate for elderly individuals who had been taking aspirin
prophylactically when they suffered a head trauma, resulting in deadly brain
hemorrhage.15
Lending even more weight to Starko's work, an animal study in 2010 suggests that
treating the flu with antipyretics (such as aspirin) may increase your risk of death.
This study involved animals, but the results were compelling enough for the
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researchers to make an "urgent call" for human studies.22 Aspirin also depletes
your body of important nutrients, including vitamin C, vitamin E, folic acid, iron,
potassium, sodium, and zinc,23 as well as impairing your melatonin production.24
And in addition to aspirin's growing list of bodily assaults, routine aspirin use has
been associated with even broader health problems, such as:
Swap all trans fats (vegetable oils, margarine, etc.) for healthy fats like
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Eat at least one-third of your food raw, or as much as you can manage
In the interview Dr. Kummerow explains that trans-fats prevent the formation of
prostacyclin that thins your blood. By diligently avoiding all trans-fats, your body
will happily make prostacyclin and keep your blood thin so you avoid heart attacks
and strokes. Avoiding trans fats is imperative for your cardiovascular health. This is
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a FAR more effective strategy than eating trans-fats and taking aspirin to thin your
blood.
Heart Health Tip #3: Exercise and Change Your Eating Schedule
One of the primary benefits of exercise is that it helps optimize your insulin and
leptin levels. Following the dietary guidelines above will move you closer to the
mark, but adding exercise can bring you across the finish line. A sizable study
published in The Lancet found that a mere 15 minutes of exercise per day can add
three years to your lifeeven if you have cardiovascular disease risks.30
If your fasting insulin level is above three, seriously consider restricting your intake
of grains and sugars until your insulin level is three or below (in terms of fructose,
aim for a maximum of 15 grams per day). You might want to incorporate
intermittent fasting into your diet and exercise plan, which can accelerate your
progress. Intermittent fasting increases insulin/leptin sensitivity and mitochondrial
efficiency, reduces oxidative stress, boosts growth hormone production, and helps
you shed excess body fat. This is important as insulin and leptin resistance are at
the core of most all cardiovascular diseases.
Earthing may actually be one of the best-kept secrets for preventing blood clots
it's an old practice gaining a new appreciation! In the simplest terms, Earthing (or
grounding your body to the earth) is what occurs when you walk barefoot on bare
soil, grass, sand, brick, etc. Free electrons are transferred from the earth into your
body through your feet, and these electrons are some of the most potent
antioxidants known to man.
One of the most important discoveries about Earthing is that it makes your blood
less viscous, which has profound implications for your cardiovascular health
because virtually every aspect of cardiovascular disease has been correlated with
elevated blood viscosity. Earthing is so effective at achieving a blood thinning
effect that anyone take prescription anticoagulants like Coumadin need to lower
their dosage if they start to implement Earthing.
When you ground, your red blood cells have more charge on their surface, which
forces them to repel each other, so they have less tendency to "stick together" and
form a clot. This causes your blood to flow more easily and your blood pressure to
drop. Even a very small blood clot can kill you if it lodges in a critical area of your
body, so this "blood thinning" has profound health benefits. Research shows that it
takes about 80 minutes for the free electrons from the earth to reach your blood
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stream and transform your blood. One warning: if you take Coumadin, Earthing is
contraindicated as it may thin your blood too much.
By implementing many of the strategies outlined above, you will make far greater
progress than relying on drugs such as aspirin, which nearly always come with
adverse effects. Remember, heart attacks are not caused by an aspirin deficiency,
as some would have you believe!
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