People taking low doses of aspirin to protect their heart may be at risk for stomach bleeding, and those taking both aspirin and other common drugs may have an even higher bleeding risk, according to a new study.
The authors calculated that if 1,000 people not taking either aspirin or clopidogrel, marketed as Plavix, instead took both drugs, an extra one to three of them would have stomach bleeding every year, according to the study, which is published in the journal Circulation.
According to the authors' estimates, over the same period, somewhere between 5 and 10 people in 1,000 in the general population will have stomach bleeding.
Dr. Colin Baigent, a researcher from the University of Oxford in the United Kingdom who was not involved with the new study, said that the findings were not a surprise, and "seem to be consistent with the evidence."
Aspirin has been shown to reduce the risk of heart attack or stroke by preventing blood clots from forming. Guidelines say that people who have had a recent heart attack should take 75 to 325 milligrams of aspirin daily for up to a year afterward, and many others who are at risk for heart disease also take the drug regularly.
However, there is also some evidence showing that aspirin and Plavix may increase the risk of having bleeding in the upper gastrointestinal tract - the stomach and the first part of the small intestine.
To determine how aspirin, Plavix, and a range of other medications might affect bleeding risks, Dr. Luis Rodríguez of the Spanish Center for Pharmacoepidemiological Research in Madrid and his colleagues analyzed a database of primary care patients in the UK. The database included all cases of stomach bleeding between 2000 and 2007 - a total of 2,049 people age 40 to 84.
Then, they found 20,000 people that were similar to that group based on age and gender, but who had not had a stomach bleed during that time. The researchers compared records of these two groups to find out what medications individuals were currently taking and what they had been prescribed over the past year.
Of all patients who had a stomach bleed, 31 percent were taking low-dose aspirin at the time of the bleed, compared to 19 percent of people in the comparison group who did not have a stomach bleed.
The results showed that people taking any daily dose of aspirin were at almost twice the risk of having stomach bleeding than people not taking aspirin. People taking both aspirin and Plavix were three to four times more likely to have a stomach bleed than those taking neither drug.
Patients who were taking aspirin in addition to a range of other drugs, including anti-inflammatory drugs such as ibuprofen and anticoagulants such as warfarin (Coumadin), had a higher bleeding risk than those taking just aspirin.
Despite these risks, Rodríguez said that aspirin is an important drug for people who have already had a heart attack and are trying to prevent a second.
"For most of these patients who are on aspirin, if the aspirin is for secondary prevention, basically the risk that is conferred by these drugs is never so high as to negate the benefits," he told Reuters Health.
For people who have never had a heart attack, that might not be the case, he said - especially when aspirin is combined with other medications that further increase the risk of stomach bleeding.
According to Baigent, "full compliance with aspirin (recommendations) will probably double the risk of major bleeding, and most of the major bleeding that occurs is attributed to gastrointestinal bleeding."
One way that doctors can address the risk of stomach bleeding in their patients who are taking aspirin, Rodríguez said, is by also prescribing a kind of drug called proton pump inhibitors, or PPIs, which have shown to cut down on some of that risk.
Thursday, March 31, 2011
Health - How to Prevent Malaria
Malaria can affect all people, both men and women in all age groups from infants, children and adults. When this disease, the patient may experience coma, multiple organ failure, even death. In fact, it could have been prevented with simple and inexpensive manner.
So far there are the safest way to avoid malaria.
First, avoid or reduce mosquito bites by sleeping in insecticide treated bed nets, is inside the house at night, smearing the body with anti-mosquito bites, use mosquito coil or spray with mosquito repellent. Do not forget to install wire netting on the windows or ventilation, he said.
Second, clean up places where mosquitoes rest and perch or nest eradicate mosquitoes by cleaning up the grass and bushes on the banks of the channel, folded fabric that was hanging, seek a state in the house there is no dark and damp place by installing glass tiles and glass opening. Another way is, clean up the bushes around the house, drain the pool of water, and piled with soil or sand all stagnant water around the house.
Another preventive way is, to kill adult mosquitoes by spraying homes with insecticide, to kill mosquito larva-eating fish larvae in sowing. "In addition, kill mosquito larvae with anti-drug spraying or mosquito larvae in stagnant water.
So far there are the safest way to avoid malaria.
First, avoid or reduce mosquito bites by sleeping in insecticide treated bed nets, is inside the house at night, smearing the body with anti-mosquito bites, use mosquito coil or spray with mosquito repellent. Do not forget to install wire netting on the windows or ventilation, he said.
Second, clean up places where mosquitoes rest and perch or nest eradicate mosquitoes by cleaning up the grass and bushes on the banks of the channel, folded fabric that was hanging, seek a state in the house there is no dark and damp place by installing glass tiles and glass opening. Another way is, clean up the bushes around the house, drain the pool of water, and piled with soil or sand all stagnant water around the house.
Another preventive way is, to kill adult mosquitoes by spraying homes with insecticide, to kill mosquito larva-eating fish larvae in sowing. "In addition, kill mosquito larvae with anti-drug spraying or mosquito larvae in stagnant water.
Wednesday, March 30, 2011
Health - Evidence ties smoking to throat, stomach cancer
Smokers face an increased risk of certain types of throat and stomach cancers, even years after they quit, a new study finds.
Combining the results of 33 past studies, Italian researchers found that current smokers were more than twice as likely as nonsmokers to develop cancer, either in their esophagus or in a part of the stomach called the gastric cardia.
In some of the studies, the risk of esophagus cancer remained high even when people had quit smoking three decades earlier.
The two cancers, both known as adenocarcinomas, are relatively uncommon in Western countries. Rates elsewhere are much higher, especially in less developed countries. But in recent decades, rates of the cancers have been rising in the U.S. and Europe -- possibly related to growing rates of obesity.
Smoking has long been considered a risk factor for the two cancers.
But these latest findings offer a "better quantification" of the risks, said senior researcher Dr. Eva Negri, of the "Mario Negri" Institute of Pharmacological Research in Milan.
What's more, they suggest that the risks remain higher than average for some time after smokers quit.
"Stopping smoking is highly beneficial at any age, but it appears that for these cancers the risk decreases only slowly," Negri told Reuters Health in an email.
For their study, published in the journal Epidemiology, Negri and her colleagues pooled the results of 33 previous studies. In most of them, researchers had compared a relatively small group of patients with either esophagus or gastric cardia tumors against a cancer-free group. In three studies, researchers had followed large groups of adults over time, charting any new cases of esophageal or gastric cardia cancers.
Overall, Negri's team found, current smokers had more than double the odds of developing either of the cancers, compared to people who had never smoked.
And while that risk declined after people stopped smoking, it was still 62 percent higher in former smokers than in lifelong non-smokers. In some studies, the extra risk of esophagus cancer persisted up to 30 years after people had quit.
Since both esophageal and gastric cardia adenocarcinomas are fairly uncommon in the West, the absolute risks to any one smoker may be low.
According to the American Cancer Society, the average American has a one in 200 chance of developing any type of esophageal cancer over a lifetime, and a one in 114 risk of developing some form of stomach cancer.
By comparison, the odds of developing lung cancer are about one in 13 for men, and one in 16 for women -- counting both smokers and non-smokers. Smokers would be at much greater risk than lifelong non-smokers.
Lung cancer, heart disease and other ills are "numerically more important" than esophageal and gastric cardia cancers when it comes to the health consequences of smoking, Negri noted.
The types of studies that were available for her team to analyze can't prove that smoking causes adenocarcinoma of the esophagus or gastric cardia. To do that, researchers would have to purposely expose some people to years of tobacco smoke and see what happens to them over time - and ethical reasons make a study like that impossible.
Still, Negri and her colleagues say, the risks seen in the current study offer smokers one more reason to quit -- and non-smokers one more reason to never start.
Combining the results of 33 past studies, Italian researchers found that current smokers were more than twice as likely as nonsmokers to develop cancer, either in their esophagus or in a part of the stomach called the gastric cardia.
In some of the studies, the risk of esophagus cancer remained high even when people had quit smoking three decades earlier.
The two cancers, both known as adenocarcinomas, are relatively uncommon in Western countries. Rates elsewhere are much higher, especially in less developed countries. But in recent decades, rates of the cancers have been rising in the U.S. and Europe -- possibly related to growing rates of obesity.
Smoking has long been considered a risk factor for the two cancers.
But these latest findings offer a "better quantification" of the risks, said senior researcher Dr. Eva Negri, of the "Mario Negri" Institute of Pharmacological Research in Milan.
What's more, they suggest that the risks remain higher than average for some time after smokers quit.
"Stopping smoking is highly beneficial at any age, but it appears that for these cancers the risk decreases only slowly," Negri told Reuters Health in an email.
For their study, published in the journal Epidemiology, Negri and her colleagues pooled the results of 33 previous studies. In most of them, researchers had compared a relatively small group of patients with either esophagus or gastric cardia tumors against a cancer-free group. In three studies, researchers had followed large groups of adults over time, charting any new cases of esophageal or gastric cardia cancers.
Overall, Negri's team found, current smokers had more than double the odds of developing either of the cancers, compared to people who had never smoked.
And while that risk declined after people stopped smoking, it was still 62 percent higher in former smokers than in lifelong non-smokers. In some studies, the extra risk of esophagus cancer persisted up to 30 years after people had quit.
Since both esophageal and gastric cardia adenocarcinomas are fairly uncommon in the West, the absolute risks to any one smoker may be low.
According to the American Cancer Society, the average American has a one in 200 chance of developing any type of esophageal cancer over a lifetime, and a one in 114 risk of developing some form of stomach cancer.
By comparison, the odds of developing lung cancer are about one in 13 for men, and one in 16 for women -- counting both smokers and non-smokers. Smokers would be at much greater risk than lifelong non-smokers.
Lung cancer, heart disease and other ills are "numerically more important" than esophageal and gastric cardia cancers when it comes to the health consequences of smoking, Negri noted.
The types of studies that were available for her team to analyze can't prove that smoking causes adenocarcinoma of the esophagus or gastric cardia. To do that, researchers would have to purposely expose some people to years of tobacco smoke and see what happens to them over time - and ethical reasons make a study like that impossible.
Still, Negri and her colleagues say, the risks seen in the current study offer smokers one more reason to quit -- and non-smokers one more reason to never start.
Health - Take an Antibiotic Properly
It's important to take an antibiotic exactly as prescribed and to finish the entire prescription, experts say. To help prevent harmful bacteria from becoming resistant to your antibiotic, don't stop taking the medication just because you feel better.
Guidelines to help you take an antibiotic properly:
- Finish your prescription without missing any dose -- even if you stop feeling sick. Don't stop taking it because you want to save some of the medication for a future illness.
- Only stop taking the antibiotic if your doctor tells you to do so.
- Avoid sharing your antibiotic with anyone else.
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