[pct-l] Ibuprofen use increases the risk of heart attack

[Tortoise]

I went to the American Heart Association website and did a search. I found 
2 news releases of interest:

Short term use of painkillers could be dangerous to heart patients: 
http://www.newsroom.heart.org/index.php?s=43&item=1335 , 05/09/11

and

Pain relievers linked to higher risks of heart-related deaths among healthy 
people:  http://www.newsroom.heart.org/index.php?s=43&item=1052 , 06/08/2010

My take: Use NSAIDs only when necessary because they do increase the risk 
of heart attacks and strokes. Not as a regular part of one's hiking regime. 
Especially if one has had heart attack or stroke, get good medical advice 
before using.  Or suffering pain beats having a heart attack.

Tortoise

<>  Because truth matters.<>


On 2011.06.12 07:38, Charles Doersch wrote:
> Regarding ibuprofen use -- and increased risk factors.
>
> Just a word of caution in overestimating risks. That ibuprofen use increased
> the risk of myocardial events (like a heart attack) by [let's say] 30%
> (depending on dose, and length of use and health of the individual), may be
> less dramatic than it sounds.
>
> If you are concerned at what your risk is, I recommend plugging your
> personal health statistics into the American Heart Association risk
> calculator.
> https://www.americanheart.org/gglRisk/locale/en_US/index.html?gtype=health
>
> If you have a moderate risk for heart attack -- say, you score at the 6%
> level on the Framingham Heart Study analysis -- that translates as
> following: out of 100 people with your medical profile, over the next ten
> years 6 will have a heart attack [94 out of 100 won't]. Increasing exercise,
> lowering weight, etc. [all PCT-related outcomes] decreases that risk, which
> is already very low. If your risk through the use of ibuprofen were to rise
> as much as 33% -- that actually means your risk factor might have risen to
> as much as 8%. Again, 8 people out of 100 over ten years using ibuprofen
> with your health profile will have a heart attack. That of course means 92
> people out of 100 with your health profile using ibuprofen won't have a
> heart attack over ten years.
>
> Whenever it comes to reported statistics about "increased safety" or
> "increased risk" of anything from the use of bike helmets, or ski helmets,
> to that of taking ibuprofen -- I try to always check what the actual
> base-line incidence of the problem is. Some great studies have been coming
> out over the past ten years from Harvard University's department of
> psychology on how inaccurate we all tend to be at assessing actual risk and
> making rational choices based on those.
>
> Cheers,
>
> Charles Doersch
>
> On Sat, Jun 11, 2011 at 11:23 PM,<mkwart at gci.net>  wrote:
>
>> I had been taking Advil at the end of the day on the trail as a matter
>> of course until I started feeling mild twinges of pain in my heart after
>> I took it. Then I saw the warning on the label two summers ago about the
>> increase in heart attack risk.  Here is an article explaining what my
>> body had been telling me for
>> years------
>> http://www.usatoday.com/news/health/2010-06-11-nsaids-heart_N.htm.
>> Danish researchers found that NSAID pain medications not only increased
>> the risk of heart attack for those with heart disease but for healthy
>> people. They even mentioned people who are physically active and take
>> these drugs routinely for pain.
>>
>> Naproxen (Aleve) doesn't seem to have the same risk, according to the
>> article.
>>
>> Fireweed
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