Aspirin has been prescribed for those with heart disease for the last 3 decades. It is known to make plaques in the blood vessels break up. The massive heart attacks happen due to artery blockage. If the lumen or inner lining of a vessel is narrowed, one small plug that comes along with stop any further flow. The ER has protocols that start with 4 baby aspirins in the case of anyone coming in for chest pain (or stroke) before anything else is done. This basic and old drug is still useful for saving lives. There are more complex drugs and procedures that are used now but for the sake of this review, we will stick with the basics. Aspirin is known by its generic name of acetylsalicylic acid. It falls into the family of nonsteroidal antiinflammatory medicines. This family works on the cascade of inflammation that starts with a break in the lining of the blood vessel. A cascade develops to signal to platlets (small blood particles that rush to form a "glue plug") to accumulate in the area of damage and stop up the hole. Some times if there is no tear in the blood vessel wall but inflammation present from cholesterol plaques or tobacco damage, a plug will form anyway and block the lumen. There are herbs that are thought to do the same thing like ginko biloba. The theory is that by allowing blood to be "plug free" it gets to smaller sized blood vessels with easy. Think of the blood as being slippery so it gets to the smallest spaces. One of the known side effects of ginko is to have bleeding thus the contraindication to it's use when on a blood thinner.
I believe the use of this antiinflammatory has multiple benefits. Controlling inflammation should be considered a basic concept with anyone who suffers from any disease process. It has yet to be researched if antiinflammatory control will help to modify a disease manifestation but all my patients are told that in addition to controlling the specific disease, an antiinflammatory diet is encourage to gain further health benefits and possible reverse the disease at hand.
Try adding this to your daily diet :
http://www.drweil.com/drw/u/ART02012/anti-inflammatory-diet
