August 14th, 2009
Aspirin really is a drug
There are a lot of drugs we take so reflexively we don’t even know they’re drugs.
One such drug is aspirin.
The natural substance from which it was first derived was known to Hippocrates. The first aspirin tablets were sold in 1900. An aspirin is part of the shield for the Bayer Leverkusen soccer club in Germany, founded in 1904.
But aspirin is a drug. I take a little one every night to cut my risk of a heart attack. The Journal of the American Medical Association this month links aspirin use and colon cancer survival.
This doesn’t make aspirin harmless. Aspirin can cause bleeding in your gut or in your brain. Even half a “baby aspirin” (the 83 mg. dose I take) caused a 40% higher risk of digestive tract bleeding requiring transfusion in one study.
Part of the problem, I think, may lie in how we package aspirin and other pain relievers. As with many other substances, it has been super-sized. Until aspirin it was common to see bottles with 1,000 aspirin at a very low price.
Aspirin is relatively safe, and effective for many conditions, some of which we are just learning about. It is, as Bayer advertises, a wonder drug. But aspirin, like many drugs, can also kill you and needs to be treated with respect.
Dana Blankenhorn has been a business journalist since 1978, and has covered technology since 1982. He launched the Interactive Age Daily, the first daily coverage of the Internet to launch with a magazine, in September 1994. See his full profile and disclosure of his industry affiliations.
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