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The risk of heart failure increases with aspirin consumption

 

In people with an underlying risk factor for heart failure, aspirin should never be prescribed as it increases the risk of heart failure by as much as 26%. This finding was published in the ESC Heart Failure journal, which is affiliated with the European Society of Cardiology (ESC). The underlying risk factors include smoking, diabetes, high blood pressure, high cholesterol, obesity, and cardiovascular disease.

This is a path-breaking study as it is the first to report how dangerous aspirin medication is to people having at least one risk factor of heart failure. Although the potentially dangerous link between aspirin consumption and heart failure has been unraveled, the finding needs to be backed up with substantial evidence that confirms the finding. The association of aspirin with heart failure can seem to be baffling to some medical researchers.

In the journal article, researchers explained how the incidence of heart failure was related to people with and without any heart ailment. Thereafter, they also assessed whether the use of a drug could lead to a new diagnosis of heart failure in people who have underlying risk factors. In this study, researchers investigated 30,827 patients with a risk factor for heart failure. These patients were from Western European countries and the US, that is, patients from the developed world.

The age of participants was at least 40 years and above, with the average age being 67 years. At the time of enrolment, they did not have any incidence of heart failure. Based on the usage of aspirin medication, the participants were divided into two groups: users and non-users. The patients who had the first incidence of heart failure were followed up, regardless of whether the attack was fatal or non-fatal as the incidence needed hospitalization.

About 34% of the participants were women. Nearly 25% of the participants were consuming aspirin, that is, 7698 patients in total. In the follow-up period of 5.3 years, heart failure occurred in about 1330 participants. The researchers investigated whether the use of aspirin was truly related to the incidence of heart failure in patients.

They also took into consideration several risk factors: gender, age, body mass index, smoking habit, alcohol consumption, blood pressure, blood cholesterol, creatinine levels, diabetes, cardiovascular disease, etc. Some of the other risk factors for heart failure included treatment of drugs inhibiting the levels of renin, angiotensin, and aldosterone, blockers of calcium channel, beta-blockers, diuretics, and drugs used to lower lipids. The researchers reported that the consumption of aspirin increased the risk of heart failure by about 26%.

 

 

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Can Alzheimer’s be treated with aspirin?

Plaques developed in the brain can be eliminated with a low-dose aspirin, which is an effective drug that suppresses the progression of Alzheimer’s disease. The drug aspirin is very effective in protecting the memory of patients. These are the latest findings reported by neurologists at the Rush University Medical Center. The results of this study were published in the Journal of Neuroscience.

Our study is path-breaking and novel in the sense that aspirin is one of the most commonly used medication for various illnesses. More than 1 out of 10 Americans was diagnosed with Alzheimer’s disease, which is a progressive form of dementia. Very few drugs have been approved by the FDA for the treatment of Alzheimer’s-related complications, such as dementia. Presently, only temporary relief is provided by these medications.

Researchers still do not know the exact cause of Alzheimer’s disease; however, researchers know the cause of dementia and memory loss, which is associated with the faulty disposal of amyloid beta. Amyloid beta is the most toxic protein to have been developed in the human brain. Researchers believe that the most important strategy for eliminating the progression of Alzheimer’s illness would be the activation of cellular machinery. Waste can be removed from the human brain with this machinery.

Amyloid plaques are clumps formed by the toxic protein amyloid beta. The connection between nerve cells would be harmed by amyloid plaques. Such a development is one of the major signs of Alzheimer’s illness. There seems to be a link between the reduced risk of developing Alzheimer’s disease and the consumption of aspirin. The most important component of animal cells, the lysosomes, is very useful in clearing cellular debris. In mice, lysosomes could be stimulated with aspirin. Aspirin is the component that decreases amyloid plaque.

The incidence, progression, and development of Alzheimer’s disease could be stopped by elucidating the development of amyloid plaques. To regulate the removal of waste products from the human body, a protein named TFEB. Aspirin was administered orally to mice, which were genetically modified to develop the pathology of Alzheimer’s disease.

To determine the parts of brain most affected by Alzheimer’s disease, we determined the amount of amyloid plaque in these subjects. In mice, the functions of aspirin medications are as follows: i) to augment the expression of TFEB, ii) stimulate the expression of lysosomes, and iii) decrease the pathology of amyloid plaque.

Aspirin is the most widely used medication for pain relief; moreover, it is also used extensively for the treatment of cardiovascular diseases. The findings of these research studies must be validated further. Aspirin could be soon considered as a therapeutic drug for the treatment of Alzheimer’s illness and other diseases related to dementia.