aspirin and heart attack

acetylsalicylic acid is one of the most famouscompounds in modern medicine… it's claimed to treat, pain, inflammation, fever and mayeven prevent heart attacks… but is the drug known as "aspirin" really the wonder drugwe were promised? around 400 bce, hippocrates' writings claimedthe bark of the willow tree could be ground into a powder and used to heal headaches,pains and fevers. he was the father of modern

medicine, and his remedy worked, and was usedfor many hundreds of years. it wasn't until 1829, that scientists discovered a compoundin the bark called salicin was the true medical culprit. salicin does cure the headache, but is reallyhard on the stomach, and can cause bleeding

in the digestive tract. not a great trade-off.allegedly, a french chemist found when mixed with sodium and acetyl chloride the resultingacetylsalicylic acid was soft on the tummy and fixed the swelling… based on historicalrecords uncovered by bmj, it was then later re-tested and sold as "aspirin" by f bayer& co, but it wasn't until the 1970s that british scientists figured out why acetylsalicylicacid works; which won them the nobel prize. acetylsalicylic acid is a simple compoundc-nine h-eight o-four. it reduces pain by messing with the body's production of prostaglandins;a hormone-like lipid compound formed by enzymes in the body. pain is a confounding thing forscientists because it's so subjective, but physically, tissue releases called chemicalslike prostaglandins, which tell your brain

to trigger [[bleeep]]. soooo, when you take acetylsalicylic acid(asa) it binds with the enzyme cox-2. without the cox-2 the production of prostaglandindrops and boom, no more headaches, or inflammation based aches and pains. the problem is, prostaglandin isn't a one-off.it has a number of other uses as well, an enzyme called cox-1 also binds with asa -- andcox-1 has the rather important job of keeping your stomach lining thick. i don't know aboutyou, but i'd rather my stomach acid didn't eat me -- just my lunch. prostaglandins alsoaffect how well platelets initiate blood clotting, and asa somehow has an effect on the hypothalamusregion of the brain, responsible for controlling

body temperature -- which is how it can bringdown a fever. so after all this, it makes a lot more sensehow asa can help with things like heart attacks. blood platelets that don't clot well, don'tcause blockages! when the body's fever is reduced, we feel less sick, and moving jointsis kind of the best around. and studies are exploring how asa can be recruited to do alot of other things. in 2014, the queen mary university of londonfound people who took low doses of asa daily could reduce their risks of death by somecancers by 35 to 50 percent. though, that increases risk of stomach bleeding by about3 percent, and you'd have to take it every day for a decade to see a benefit! and a new2015 study in plos one found asa might bind

to another enzyme called gapdh which causesour cells to die, on purpose. by inhibiting cell death, the thinking is, it might be ableto stop alzheimer's, huntington's, or parkinson's in their tracks. the thing is, even though it can do a lotfor the human condition, treating it as a miracle wonder-drug is a vast oversimplification.children should not ingest asa, it's part of a family of drugs which can cause fatalliver failure. and while it can reduce the risk of a second heart attack, the fda saysvery specifically it will not prevent stroke or heart attack for people with no historyof either issue. and for those required to take aspirin daily: safety, coated or entericaspirin is coated to keep the asa from releasing

into your stomach and thinning the lining.but, it's not a super solution. the coating releases the drug further into your digestivetract, potentially causing bleeding in the small intestine instead and then in the stomachonce the asa hits your bloodstream. there's no escaping science. in the end, this willow-barkderivative sure is amazing, hat-tip hippocrates, but it ain't magic. because of it's age, the effects of acetylsalicylicacid have been explored by scientists the world over in thousands of studies. is moreresearch needed? of course! always, but then again, if you're trying to prove it's a cure-all,maybe save your pennies.