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New insights into why aspirin works so well

eurekalert.org

171–180 of 291 posts

Re: New insights into why aspirin works so well

#171
Aspirin has been a life changer for long Covid. The other painkillers make symptoms 10x worse. Many people wonder if aspirin anti platelet/blood thinning capabilities is helping breakup microclots which brings relief.

There’s also a thing called nattokinase that apparently has similar properties to aspirin and is being studied for heart disease. It has been shown to break down blood clots and even degrade the spike protein.

NK might be a viable alternative. https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC6043915/

Re: New insights into why aspirin works so well

#172
post #8

annecdata: aspirin is pretty good as an anti-inflamitory and hence pain-killer. the reason i don't take it is that it irritates the stomach, and i have enough issues with my insides as it is (irritable-bowel syndrome - not fun) i currently use cocodamol (codeine and paracetomol) to control my arthritic pain, but it isn't doing so great. at the end of the day, if you really need pain control, you probably want a pure…

I have a friend who has suffered from something known as juvenile idiopathic arthritis since he was still a teenager, and he doesn't function very well without pretty decent doses of CBD for the past long while I've known him. I recognize legality issues are prohibitive in many parts of the world but if this is an option to you I would suggest trying this or anything else that takes the actual inflammation down inste…

Thanks for posting about the lead in tumeric issue. Never knew this was a thing, but it seems pretty widespread based on that study.

Re: New insights into why aspirin works so well

#173
post #100

Earlier quoted context omitted.

He's probably referring to paracetamol's narrow therapeutic index[1]. 1 paracetamol may relieve your headache, 10 will do lasting damage to your liver, or even be fatal[2]. It's kind of nuts. Of course, Ibuprofen is not without (GI) issues, but I don't think it kills as many people as paracetamol does. [1] The therapeutic index (TI; also referred to as therapeutic ratio) is a quantitative measurement of the relative…

Paracetamol toxicity is the foremost cause of acute liver failure in the Western world, yup people are shocked when they learn it is good ol' Tylenol that is killing people or making them deathly ill, not those evil steroids or opioids hyped by the media. That is not to say those are not dangerous, but paracetamol is way easier to accidentally overdose. Taking to much of an oral steroid at once will not cause liver f…

Okay, I need to revisit my position. Now I'm shocked that _both_ paracetamol and ibuprofen are available "off the shelf" (without talking to anyone).

I wonder if people in general are or were always as blasé about the risks of easily obtainable medicines as the people around me seem to be today. Could trust in government regulations to protect us from harm have the side effect of eroding personal responsibility? Or could the era of click-through EULAs and warnings on everything etc. be training people to not bother reading any instructions/warnings? ("This product contains water, which is known to the state of California to cause cancer and birth defects.")

I'm rambling. Maybe I don't have a coherent point. But something bugs me about it.

Re: New insights into why aspirin works so well

#174

Thousands of people are hospitalized yearly due to bleeds from 'allegedly' safe drug. The overdose occurs due to double-dosing or people taking too much owing to the drugs not working. Same for drugs containing acetaminophen. Overall, overpriced , infective drugs that cause more harm than good except for the most minor of pain. The notion that these drugs are supposed to be safer seems clearly false.

"The dose makes the poison", as Paracelsus said. Everything (including water and oxygen) is toxic at the wrong levels.

Re: New insights into why aspirin works so well

#175

When you say in 2023 that they have "new insights" as to why a common over the counter drug works it really doesn't instill great confidence in pharma. Seems like we're still grinding up rhino horns and tiger penis and hoping for the best outcome, just that we do it with extensive testing now so we get a statistically acceptable outcome viable for marketing.

As a doctor, i can confidently tell you as much as we know, we know so damn little. I get headaches everytime a patent asks me to explain why. The truth is for most diseases at best we have some plausible mechanism that's sorta supported up with some biology, and some treatment that works and we think we have some idea why. The real answer is we don't know, we have some reasonable theories that may or may not be true

>I get headaches everytime a patent asks me to explain why.

Maybe pop an aspirin!

Re: New insights into why aspirin works so well

#176

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Ibuprofen and aspirin can both reliably produce internal gastrointestinal bleeds after a single dose in people with underlying digestive diseases. Over enough time with constant usage, they'll cause that in anybody.

Can confirm (anecdotally) Ibuprofen gives me either gas or the runs. Paracetamol works just fine - but it does have a liver effect, so it's a big no-no for hangovers.

>Paracetamol works just fine - but it does have a liver effect, so it's a big no-no for hangovers.

The worse part here for you is if you have hangovers too often. After dry January this year I noticed how much even non-hangover inducing alcohol usage decreases my QoL.

I lost weight without trying, I was more awake, I felt fogged up in the brain less often.

I reduced my alcohol consumption a lot now. And I wasn't even getting wasted often. I think it's worth trying if you don't want to destroy your body.

Re: New insights into why aspirin works so well

#177

When you say in 2023 that they have "new insights" as to why a common over the counter drug works it really doesn't instill great confidence in pharma. Seems like we're still grinding up rhino horns and tiger penis and hoping for the best outcome, just that we do it with extensive testing now so we get a statistically acceptable outcome viable for marketing.

efficacy and safety are the benchmark targets for regulatory approval.

mechanism of action isn’t even on the list.

“it works, it won’t kill you faster than the thing it treats, we have no idea why” is totally legit. welcome to biology, the dance of control with non-engineered systems.

Re: New insights into why aspirin works so well

#178

When you say in 2023 that they have "new insights" as to why a common over the counter drug works it really doesn't instill great confidence in pharma. Seems like we're still grinding up rhino horns and tiger penis and hoping for the best outcome, just that we do it with extensive testing now so we get a statistically acceptable outcome viable for marketing.

We don’t even fully understand how cuts heal...

The idea that doctors (or even the medical community) are standing on the top of a Mountain of Truth is a harmful fantasy.

Re: New insights into why aspirin works so well

#179

Earlier quoted context omitted.

No. Science has all along been testing if something works and then finding out why. Often the „why“ is orders of magnitudes harder to find out than the „if“. For example, we can observe how the brain functions in some instances, but why it works like does will elude us perhaps forever. Highly complex systems like the inner biomechanical workings of our brains are essentially a black box.

"Why" questions in general are pretty difficult question to answer in a satisfactory way. [1] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=36GT2zI8lVA

I knew it was the Feynman video!

Re: New insights into why aspirin works so well

#180

When you say in 2023 that they have "new insights" as to why a common over the counter drug works it really doesn't instill great confidence in pharma. Seems like we're still grinding up rhino horns and tiger penis and hoping for the best outcome, just that we do it with extensive testing now so we get a statistically acceptable outcome viable for marketing.

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