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

[Jim Keener ( J J )]

Those are big numbers, both for people who have had heart attacks, AND for those who haven't. 

Jim Keener ( J J )

On Jun 12, 2011, at 5:54 PM, Tortoise <Tortoise73 at charter.net> wrote:

> 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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