Think what's sold over the counter can't put you under acoffin-lid?
You already know how I feel about the "aspirin-a-day" kick that
every doctor in the whole nation seems to be on right now - ostensibly
for the prevention of heart
disease. In fact, I wrote a Daily Dose on the subject just last
month... But just to reiterate: I think "aspirin therapy" is
crazy. Not only does aspirin increase the risk of potentially
lethal internal bleeding, it's also makes blood MORE likely to clot up,
not less! And as if these reasons weren't enough to make you
flush your Bayer down the commode, there's new research about
over-the-counter (OTC) pain relievers that's even more damning: It
turns out that taking Ibuprofen (Advil, Motrin) in combination with
aspirin actually doubles your risk of death from heart-related causes!
That's right: According to a study of eight years' worth
of
medical records of over 7000 patients conducted by Britain's Medical
Research Council (and reported in my favorite medical journal, The
Lancet), if you pop Ibuprofen for any reason - say, arthritis pain relief -
while engaged in aspirin therapy for heart disease, you're twice as
likely to keel over from a heart attack because of the way these two
powerful drugs interact.
These findings only prove what I've been saying all
along -that just because something is available over the
counter doesn't mean it's harmless, or that it can't kill you...
In fact, a recent survey by the National Consumers League
found that 44 percent of adults KNOWINGLY exceeded the recommended
dose of OTC pain-relievers - while only 16 percent had even read the
warning label! Lunacy. Didn't these people hear about the dangers of
possible liver damage from unintentional acetaminophen
overdosing? I
wonder if these folks would have been so careless if they'd known
that Federal officials estimate that annually over 150,000 Americans
end up in the emergency department because of complications from OTC
pain-relievers - while these "harmless" meds kill 16,000 of us outright
every year...
Here's my recommendation: Take OTC medicines like aspirin,
acetaminophen, and ibuprofen only when you're in pain - and never
take them simultaneously or exceed the maximum dosages as listed on the
labels (if you can even read them, they're printed so small).
And remember, these are DRUGS. Be sure to treat them that way.