Bad Medical Advice: How Taking an Aspirin a Day for Reported Health Benefits Could Actually Kill You
A few decades ago, during the 1970s, "an apple a day keeps the doctor away" morphed to "an aspirin a day keeps heart attacks and strokes away." Not only does this not work as a preventative measure for cardiac arrest and strokes, the side effects to the gastrointestinal or GI tract range can be severe. This is not an opinion. Several studies and even the FDA have expressed concerns about this approach for a healthy heart. Aspirin depletes the body of life-saving nutrients, such as potassium, sodium, folic acid, iron, and vitamin C, leading to anemia, depression, diarrhea fatigue, suppression of the immune system, and elevated homocysteine, which is ironically a strong heart disease risk factor. Long-term, daily consumption of aspirin can lead to undetected internal bleeding in the GI tract, eventually causing ulcers or leading to other serious inflammatory gastrointestinal conditions, even Crohn's Disease.