An aspirin a day WON’T keep the doctor away

In case you haven’t noticed, I’m always excited when a study comes along that makes us challenge our long-held beliefs—and by “our,” I mean the vast majority of modern American medical practitioners.

It gives me great joy to be able to call the powers-that-be out on these unfounded (and often dangerous) views. So I’m not going to beat around the bush.

Today, I want to talk about aspirin. And more specifically, two new studies that will hopefully mark a permanent end to the absurd (and insanely common) recommendation to take it daily.

Useless for 80 percent of the population

Let’s start with a study recently published in the Lancet, which suggests prescribing a standard daily dose of aspirin doesn’t benefit everyone in the same way.

In fact, researchers found that the heart benefits of a low dose of 75 to 100 mg of aspirin daily were pretty well confined to people weighing less than 154 pounds.

So most men—some 80 percent of whom weighed over 154 pounds—experienced no clear benefit from aspirin therapy at all.

Not to mention the most obvious problem—weight. How many American men weigh 154 pounds or less? While the diabesity epidemic rages on, I can’t imagine there are many.

But the real shocker came when researchers looked at the disadvantages of aspirin therapy. Because that’s when they found that subjects on aspirin who weighed less than 154 pounds also faced some real risks—including higher rates of early cancer. Especially if they were older than 70.

This is the most notable finding. Because while plenty of research has looked at aspirin’s pharmacological effects over the years, there are still plenty of questions about how well our bodies tolerate it as we grow older.

These results finally point to an answer—and, well, it’s not exactly encouraging.

Potentially deadly for patients over 70

The other study I want to share today is from ASPREE—a combined Australian-U.S. trial published in the New England Journal of Medicine.

Like the Lancet study, this one looked at elderly patients aged 70 and older, who randomly received either low-dose aspirin (in this case, 100 mg) or a placebo. And like the Lancet study, the results weren’t good.

In fact, it showed that among these elderly patients, low-dose aspirin delivered no benefit—only harm. Primarily in the form of higher rates of cancer.

Meanwhile, there are millions of people taking low-dose aspirin around the world as I write this. And you might even be one of them.

So, what should we do about it? For one thing, we need to update our recommendations. That’s just plain common sense.

Sadly, you probably won’t see much of that from your regular doc. But that’s what I’m here for. And for the record, I’ve never been a big fan of routine aspirin use.

As usual, there are better ways to get the same supposed benefits of aspirin, at considerably lower risk—whether it’s my A-List Diet or my Ultimate Heart Protection Protocol. So do yourself a favor and ditch the daily aspirin once and for all. Because much like the rest of conventional medicine’s dusty dogma, you just don’t need it.

Source:

“Large Trials Cast Doubt on Low-Dose Aspirin’s Benefits.” Medscape Medical News, 02/20/2019. (medscape.com/viewarticle/908884)