ABC News Report on "Aspirin Bleeding Risks Outweigh Benefits"
ABC News Reports "Aspirin Bleeding Risks Outweigh Benefits"
Ok here we go again. Several people I know contacted me about a news report on ABC that stated that Aspirin Bleeding Risks Outweigh Benefits and they wanted to know more details so I pulled the article. It was published in JAMA this past week.
As many of you have heard me state in the past, one of my professors in pharmacy school said that when looking at a published article to be sure to ask who stands to lose or gain from the results of the report. So before I read the article I wanted to take a look at the authors and their background. I found that a couple of them have received compensation from Bayer in the past and one from Bristol Myers. At first thought you would think that an report that was negative would hurt Bayer so this may be a pretty groundbreaking report but upon further looking I found just the opposite, this would help Bayer and their sales of PPI (proton Pump Inhibitors). You see in the conclusion of the article they authors suggested that taking the aspirin with a PPI might be a way to reduce the risk of bleeding while maintaining the benefits of the aspirin.
Ok, with that in mind I decided to look to see if there was anything in the study which could push things toward the outcome that they desired. The study reports that they only looked at low dose aspirin therapy and came to the conclusion that it has a high risk of bleeding that outweighs the benefits. What I noticed was that the study authors designated low dose therapy as doses of 300mg or less. The authors even stated in their report that the usual definition of low dose (as defined by the American Diabetes Association) is 75 to 162 mg so that makes me wonder, why did they use a higher threshold for their definition of low dose therapy?
This research may very well be correct and the risks may be higher than we all suspected in the past. It would have been nice if they only included doses ranging between 75 and 162 mg as the definition of “low dose” therapy but they didn’t and we have no way of knowing what the statistical significance it would have made. Once again in my opinion big Pharma is really looking out for their own bottom line and disguising it in a way that it appears that they have our best interest in mind.
Folks if you truly want to reduce the risk of cardio-vascular events then please be sure you are supplementing with ALL 90 essential nutrients at doses appropriate to body weight, stay away from the bad stuff as defined by Drs Peter Glidden and Joel Wallach, and increase your consumption of antioxidants considerably. Be sure to contact me about the exact course of action you should be taking based on your individual circumstances.
Keith Abell, RPh CIP MI
Pharmacist – Marketing Director
Youngevity Essential Life Sciences
