Protect your heart better than aspirin in 2 ways….

Today's post: Monday, 7-9-2007

1. Taking aspirin to protect your heart has three big disadvantages. First, it tends to erode your stomach lining. And, that causes bad breath & has helped cause ulcers or serious bleeding in some people. (It makes heartburn or acid reflux worse.)

Second, you most need protection when you are under stress while the protective effect of aspirin tends to stop when you are under stress.

(And, if you take ibuprofen as Advil or Motrin or Aleve for example, it also stops the protection from the aspirin.)

Supplements like bilberry extract & grape seed extract are heart protective also. So is eating berries several times a week, particularly blueberries & blackberries.

These foods & supplements DO continue their protection while you are under stress -- or if you take ibuprofen for muscle soreness or other reasons. They do NOT cause stomach lining problems or bad breath. They have several other health benefits. And, berries taste wonderful.

Note: Stopping regular aspirin abruptly apparently can cause a rebound effect of increased blood clotting. So if you have been taking it regularly, be sure to add the supplements for a week or so first before discontinuing it. And, even then, it might be wise to take it every other day for a week or so to allow your body to adjust gradually.

Drinking extra water can also help. And, if you haven’t been taking it already, also adding 200 mg a day of natural vitamin E, alpha tocopherol, a week or so before stopping the aspirin also would help since it also reduces excess blood clotting.

Also, save some of the aspirin so that you always have it with you if you can. If you do have a heart attack, studies show that taking aspirin immediately & chewing it before swallowing to get it to work faster sharply increases your survival odds.

I’ve known this information & done posts on it before. But here is an article by Dr Al Sears with a third & quite serious drawback to taking daily aspirin to protect your heart.

This information is new to me.

He also includes another way to prevent both heart attack AND stroke that you can substitute for aspirin that works even better than aspirin does. (Separate information shows that his method also slows aging & protects you from mental decline.)

“Aspirin Can Boost Your Risk of Stroke

By Al Sears, MD

Yesterday, my neighbor asked me if it was a good idea to take aspirin to avoid heart attacks and stroke. I responded with a question of my own: "Would you take a painkiller if you weren’t in pain?"

TV commercials make it sound logical… but taking aspirin regularly just causes a new set of problems. What I call "the law of unintended consequences."

A new study published in Lancet Neurology found that older people who are taking aspirin "preventively" may be seven times more likely to have a stroke.

The same researchers estimated that if the misuse of drugs like aspirin continues to increase, it may soon overtake high blood pressure as the leading cause of stroke in those over 75.

Instead of taking aspirin, take steps to lower your homocysteine levels. Your cells dump this "toxic waste" product into your bloodstream as they burn energy.

Too much homocysteine is a serious health risk. In fact, homocysteine levels are a better predictor of heart disease - and stroke, by the way - than anything else, including cholesterol.

You can lower your homocysteine levels simply by supplementing with B vitamin. No harsh drugs are necessary. Here’s what I recommend:

Vitamin B6 - 75 mg daily
Vitamin B12 - 400 mcg daily
Folic Acid - 800 mcg daily “

This article appears courtesy of Early To Rise, the Internet’s most popular health, wealth, and success e-zine. For a complimentary subscription, visit http://www.earlytorise.com/.

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My note:

Some people may need more B12 or more folic acid or to add N-acetyl Cysteine, NAC, or TMG to this to get their homocysteine levels to below 9.0 or lower. Dr Sears likes to see his patients get below 8.0 he has said separately.

More B6, however is not desirable since more than 100 mg a day seems to cause nerve problems.