Millions of Americans take ibuprofen or naproxen for pain relief. They are the go-to drugs for headaches, pulled muscles, arthritis and menstrual cramps.
New findings suggest those common painkillers, called non-steroidal anti-inflammatory drugs or NSAIDs, increase the risk of heart attack or stroke risk if taken in high doses. Brands like Motrin and Advil contain these drugs.
In 2004, Vioxx, Bextra and Celebrex were found to increase the risk of heart attacks and strokes, and they were pulled from the market.
Dr. Tara Narula, associate director of Lenox Hill Hospital’s cardiac care unit, told “CBS This Morning: Saturday” that the people who have to worry are those who use these drugs more than the recommended over-the-counter dose. Consumers with chronic diseases such as osteo-arthritis or rheumatoid arthritis should be careful.
The labels warn about overuse, but a new study quantifies the actual risk.
“The latest research looked at several hundred thousand patients, 300,000, and what they found is that if 1,000 patients take it for a year, three are at risk for having a heart attack, one of which can be fatal,” said Narula. “So these medications taken in high doses can be exactly as risky and dangerous as those removed from the market.”
Read more at CBS NEWS.
{Matzav.com Newscenter}
Pain killers only treat symptoms, the underlying cause still remains. L’mashal: If you were driving and the fuel light went on you wouldn’t just remove the light bulb. That would be irresponsible, and your car would stall some miles thereafter.
Who funded this study? Are they connected with, or funded by the makers of the drugs which have been removed from the market?
To Comment #1 from “Yankiv” I say:
TRIPLE OF TRIPLE OF TRIPLE DITTOES!!!!!!!
If you are in pain it is because you are not praying hard enough!
Just wondering why if three people in one thousand patients who take these drugs statistically get heart attacks means anything at all. How do we know it was because of the drug? Just wondering. Didn’t do any research at all.
This article, along with the explanation in Comment #1 from Yankiv, are extremely excellent pieces that sharply reveal a serious problem that desperately needs to be exposed.
The issue with painkillers is really just the “tip of the iceberg.” Most of what we think of as “Modern Medicine” is geared to just treating the outward symptoms of an illness with very little regard to the deeper underlying causes of the problem. This means that in most cases, a modern medical “treatment” is to do an action that will SUPPRESS and BLOCK the mechanisms of the symptom from making the symptom. And this is done with little or no regard to the root CAUSES of the symptom; this is done with little or no thought to WHY is this person’s metabolism making this symptom.
So — like Comment #1 from Yankiv eloquently explains — doing this is similar to someone who is driving a car, and an annoying warning light flashes on. But instead of thinking about why is the light coming on and what is it signifying that the car needs, the person’s mechanic takes some tools and REMOVES the light! So as they are so blatently ignoring the light’s warning as they thus keep driving the car, sooner than latter, the car is going to completely break down!
Furthermore, most of the modern medical medications are themselves gravely toxic substances, which can thus cause much harm to those who take them. Modern medicine openly admits this problem, as they refer to this harm as the “side effects” (in the official medical literature, the term used is the “adverse reactions”) of the medications. The trick then that they try to do is to use just a very tiny amount of the substance. In other words, they use the least amount of the substance that will do the job (of stopping the symptom) with the hope that this tiny amount of the substance will cause only a tiny amount of side effect harm.
The problem though, is that even a tiny amount of harm, is, of course, still harm. Furthermore, patients with severe symptoms will need to take larger amounts of the medications, and patients with ongoing conditions will often need to be on the medications for their whole lives. Obviously, these cases of larger medication amounts and longer medication use will have more side effect harm.
It is estimated that every year, in our country of the United States alone, over ONE HUNDRED THOUSAND PEOPLE actually DIE from the harmful side effects of their medications!! (See http://www.alternet.org/story/147318/100,000_americans_die_each_year_from_prescription_drugs,_while_pharma_companies_get_rich.)