By Dr. Steven Chaney, Ph.D
Another popular myth has been
busted! I'm sure that you have heard this one before.
Many doctors advise their patients
to take a baby aspirin every day to reduce their risk of heart attack.
This recommendation has been
repeated so often in the media and in self-help books and web sites that even
more people are taking an aspirin every day without even waiting for their
doctor to recommend it.
Is
this good advice?
Probably not, accordingly to a new
study done by Dr. Gerry Fowlkes of the Wolfson Unit for Prevention of
Cardiovascular Disease in Edinburgh Scotland.
In a study that he presented at
the most recent meeting of the European Society for Cardiology in Barcelona
Spain, he and his colleagues followed 3,000 men at very high risk for developing
heart disease for an average of eight years. Half of the group was randomly
assigned to take an aspirin every day and the other half was given a placebo.
At the end of eight years there
was no difference in the rate of heart attacks or stroke - or risk of death
from any cause - between the two groups.
In other words, an aspirin a day
did not decrease the risk of heart attack and stroke and had no discernable
health benefits in this study.
Even
worse, there were 34 major bleeds in people taking the aspirin compared to only
20 in people taking the placebo.
And if you looked at internal
bleeding that was so serious that it required hospitalization, the risk was
almost double for the aspirin users compared to the placebo users.
The conclusion of this study was
that for otherwise healthy people the risks of taking aspirin
outweigh the benefits. The scientists cautioned that for people who have
already had a heart attack the benefits of taking an aspirin a day might
outweigh the risks.
But I would encourage
you to investigate natural alternates rather than relying on a drug to reduce
your risk of heart disease.
For example, several
recent clinical studies have shown that as little as 500 mg/day of Omega-3
fatty acids, whether from fish or from supplements, can reduce the risk of a second
heart attack in someone who has already had one heart attack by 30-40%.
And, of course, the
Landmark Study showed that people who have used the Shaklee supplements for 20
years or more have 1/3 the incidence of angina, heart attack, stroke or
congestive heart failure as do people using other company's multivitamins or no
supplements at all.
To your Health,
Dr. Steven Chaney
Dr. Chaney has a BS in Chemistry
from Duke University and a PhD in Biochemistry from UCLA. He currently holds
the rank of Professor at a major university where runs an active cancer
research program and has published over 100 scientific articles and reviews in peer-reviewed
scientific journals.
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