Heart Diseases Part XVI - Aspirin - Friend Or Foe?

[KyleNorton]

Besides cancer, heart disease kills more than 2,000 Americans everyday. Approximately 60 million Americans have heart disease. There are many causes of heart disease. Anything that serves to damage the inner lining of blood vessels and impedes the transportation of oxygen and nutrition to the heart can be defined as a risk of heart disease. You might have heard "taking an Aspirin a day will keep your heart attacks away". In fact, Aspirin does help your heart. The salicyca acid in aspirin helps to keep bloods cells from clumping together and sticking to the arterial wall. This reduces the risk of heart diseases. Here are some reasons to be cautious about aspirin therapy.
Before discussing the benefits and side effects of aspirin, there are some people who should not take aspirin. These include:

a. Allergies to ASA
b. last trimester of pregnancy
c. prone to bleeding
d. has an active peptic ulcer
e. taking blood thinner medication.

1. Aspirin indeed helps your blood from clotting. If you suffer any bleeding, taking aspirin will make bleeding harder to stop. Study show that aspirin might increase the bleeding complication. If you are taking any blood thinner medication or you have an ulcer, please consult with your doctor before taking aspirin. For people suffering from hemorrhages (this is the loss of blood from the circulatory system or internal bleeding) taking aspirin would do more harm than good.

2. Aspirin increases the risk of bleeding and hemorrhagic strokes that are caused by blood vessels bursting in or around your brain. Therefore do not assume that taking an aspirin a day would do no harm. Please consult with with your doctor before starting aspirin therapy.

3. Study shows that aspirin does not work well with people with high cholesterol levels. People with cholesterol levels over 220 respond poorly to aspirin therapy. Therefore, if your cholesterol level is over 220 you might need to find some other therapy to lower the risk of heart diseases.
Aspirin also causes some side affects such as heartburn, indigestion and mild-to-moderate abdominal or stomach cramps.

I hope this article will give you more understanding of the good and bad of aspirin. If you need more information of the above subject, please visit my home page at:
Kyle J. Norton

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