>> damn. I've been using aspirin. explains a ton. OK, aspirin sucks. What does Myriad say works, apart from their fancy "profen"?..... <<
Lessee now...... heart attack or alzheimer's, heart attack or alzheimer's, heart attack or.......
Study: Ibuprofen May Nullify Effects of Aspirin Therapy
Monday August 25, 4:59 pm ET
By Hollister H. Hovey
NEW YORK -- Men who take heavy amounts of nonsteroidal anti-inflammatory drugs, or NSAIDs, like ibuprofen may be nullifying the effectiveness of aspirin therapy in staving off heart attacks, a new analysis of a landmark study shows.
Dr. Tobias Kurth and colleagues from Harvard Medical School-controlled Brigham & Women's Hospital in Boston looked back at data from a study of 22,071 men that ended in 1988 that showed taking aspirin every other day can prevent heart attacks.
The initial analysis of the study showed that taking aspirin every other day led to a 44% lower risk of a first heart attack compared to placebo.
The new analysis showed that men who took NSAIDs more than 60 days a year didn't reap the positive effects of their aspirin regimen.
The men who took NSAIDs less than 60 days a year didn't seem to show a reduction in the effectiveness of their aspirin therapy.
The participants of the study were followed for five years, and in that time 378 of them suffered a heart attack.
The findings appear in the Sept. 9 issue of Circulation, a journal published by the American Heart Association. An online version of the findings was posted on the Circulation Web site Monday.
"We don't have any evidence to believe that it would be different" in women, Dr. Kurth said. The results of a similar landmark study being done on females won't be available until next year.
The data in the study didn't define what kinds of NSAIDs these men were taking, Dr. Kurth, the lead author of the study, said. But other research has shown that ibuprofen is the only kind of NSAID that creates this kind of nullifying reaction, though it is still unknown why, Dr. Kurth said.
At this point, Dr. Kurth said, it seems that Cox-2 inhibitors like Merck & Co. Inc.'s Vioxx and Pfizer Inc.'s Celebrex wouldn't interfere in aspirin's effectiveness, though further research is needed.
While aspirin and NSAIDs connect to a particular enzyme in the same way, there has been speculation that one drug might interfere with the other.
The protective effect of aspirin on the heart is mostly due to the drug's ability to inhibit the enzyme COX-1, which in turn reduces the formation of blood clots. Nonselective NSAIDs also inhibit COX-1, but this effect is reversible. |
