Tuesday, August 16, 2005
Aspirin: Still a 'miracle drug'
By Henrylito D. Tacio
Health 101
IN PURSES and backpacks, in briefcases and medicine chests the world over, millions of people keep close at hand a drug that has both a long past and a fascinating future. Its past reaches at least to the fifth century B.C., when Greek physician Hippocrates used a bitter powder obtained from willow bark to ease aches and pains and reduce fever.
Its future is being shaped today in laboratories and clinics where scientists are exploring some intriguing new uses for an interesting old drug.
The substance in willow bark that made ancient Greeks feel better, salicin, is the pharmacological ancestor of a family of drugs called salicylates, the best known of which is the world's most widely used drug--aspirin.
Sodium salicylate, a predecessor to aspirin, was not often popular though, as it has a habit of irritating the stomach. However, in 1897, a man named Felix Hoffman changed the face of medicine forever.
Hoffman was a German chemist working for Bayer. He had been using the common pain reliever of the time, sodium salicylate, to treat his father's arthritis. The sodium salicylate caused his father the same stomach trouble it caused other people, so Felix decided to try and concoct a less acidic formula.
His work led to the synthesization of acetylsalicylic acid. This soon became the painkiller of choice for physicians around the globe.
"It now seems to be a benefit in so many areas of health," says Dr. Debra Judelson, medical director of the Women's Heart Institute in Beverly Hills, California. "I advise most of my patients, as long as they aren't allergic to aspirin and don't have bleeding problems, to take low-dose aspirin."
Aspirin is an analgesic, meaning a drug that alleviates pain without affecting consciousness. It is most commonly used for headaches, muscle pain, arthritis, and fever reduction. Only recently, following the work of Dr. John Vane in the United States, has aspirin been recognized as a cardiological drug.
It is commonly thought that aspirin hinders prostaglandin production and thus reduces inflammation and pain. Prostaglandin affect the flow of blood platelets, which are key in blood clotting. If plaque tears inside a coronary artery, clotting begins at the site. This can cause cardiac arrest or a myocardial infarction. Today, doctors can prescribe aspirin to patients with a history of heart disease, and dramatically reduce that person's risk of a second event.
A worldwide study conducted by Dr. Charles H. Hennekens of the University of Miami School of Medicine has shown that there is a 23-percent reduction in the death rate among those having heart problems when aspirin is taken within 24 hours of experiencing heart-attack symptoms.
Cardiologist Judelson has witness its benefits firsthand. On an airplane flight, a fellow passenger turned pale, began suffering chest pains and had trouble breathing. She quickly gave the man two aspirin, and in a few moments his pain abated, his lungs cleared and his color returned.
Over the last decade, there has been keen interest in the use of aspirin to prevent cancer. "Experiments have shown that non-steroidal anti-inflammatory drugs, including aspirin, inhibit tumors in a whole array of cancers, including cancers of the colon, esophagus and stomach," says Dr. Michael Thun, vice president for epidemiology and surveillance research for the American Cancer Society.
At Harvard Medical School, the long-term Nurses' Health Study (which involves nearly 90,000 female nurses), has revealed a 30-percent reduction in colorectal cancer among those women who used aspirin regularly for ten to 19 years and a 44-percent reduction after 20 years of consistent aspirin use.
Taking too much aspirin is also bad for your health. In fact, there is such thing as aspirin overdose.
"The early symptoms of aspirin overdose are nausea and vomiting, followed by rapid breathing, hyperactivity, increased temperature, and sometimes convulsions," says The Merck Manual of Medical Information.
Children are oftentimes the victims of aspirin overdose. "The child quickly becomes drowsy, has difficulty breathing, and collapses," the Merck manual continues. "A high blood level of aspirin increases urination, which can cause severe dehydration, especially in young children."
Another risky thing about aspirin is the Reye's syndrome, a rare but very serious and often life-threatening disorder that causes inflammation of the brain and rapid accumulation of fat in the liver.
Taking aspirin during an influenza or chickenpox illness may increase the risk of a child developing Reye's syndrome by as much as 35-fold.
"Because of the risk of Reye's syndrome, the use of aspirin and similar compounds by children and teenagers is considered potentially dangerous," the Merck manual cautions. "However, the use of such drugs may be warranted in a few specific diseases."
For feedback, write me at tasyo2002@yahoo.com
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