Is Aspirin Good For High Cholesterol

What Should I Discuss With My Healthcare Provider Before Taking Aspirin And Pravastatin

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Do not use this medication if you are allergic to aspirin or pravastatin, or if you have:

liver disease
aspirin-sensitive asthma or other allergic reactions or
if you are pregnant or breast-feeding.

Before taking aspirin and pravastatin, tell your doctor if you are allergic to any drugs, or if you have:

diabetes
a recent history of stomach or intestinal bleeding
a bleeding or blood clotting disorder such as hemophilia
a muscle disorder or
if you are a heavy drinker .

If you have any of these conditions, you may need a dose adjustment or special tests to safely take aspirin and pravastatin.

FDA pregnancy category X. This medication can cause birth defects. Do not use aspirin and pravastatin if you are pregnant. Tell your doctor right away if you become pregnant during treatment. Use an effective form of birth control while you are using this medication.

Aspirin and pravastatin passes into breast milk and may harm a nursing baby. Do not take aspirin and pravastatin without telling your doctor if you are breast-feeding a baby.

Do not give this medication to anyone under 18 without the advice of a doctor. Aspirin should not be given to a child or teenager who has a fever, especially if the child also has flu symptoms or chicken pox. Aspirin can cause a serious and sometimes fatal condition called Reye’s syndrome in children.

How Aspirin Affects Heart Health

Aspirins second-best known effect is its ability to protect the heart. In people with heart disease who have already had a heart attack, it has been shown to lower the risk of having another. Studies consistently show that people who have had heart attacks or strokes and who take a low-dose aspirin a day can significantly reduce their risk of having another event.

Its protective benefits come from aspirins ability to lower inflammation, a condition that can attract clot-building factors within blood vessel walls. These can rupture, plugging up tiny vessels in the heart and blocking blood flow.

Doctors now believe that taking a daily low-dose aspirin is also a cheap and easy way for people who do not yet have heart disease but who have certain risk factors for it, including high cholesterol and obesity to avoid first heart attacks. The U.S. Preventive Services Task Force , a government-appointed group of independent experts, recommends the regimen for people ages 50 to 59 who fall into this category. For them, the group concludes, the benefits of aspirin outweigh the potential risks of the drug, which include gastrointestinal bleeding.

How Should I Take Aspirin And Pravastatin

Take this medication exactly as it was prescribed for you. Do not take the medication in larger amounts, or take it for longer than recommended by your doctor. Follow the directions on your prescription label.

Take aspirin and pravastatin with a full glass of water, unless your doctor has told you to limit your fluid intake.

Aspirin and pravastatin can be taken with or without food.

Aspirin and pravastatin is usually taken once a day. Try to take your dose at the same time each day. Follow your doctor’s instructions.

To be sure this medication is helping your condition, your blood will need to be tested on a regular basis. Your liver function may also need to be tested. Do not miss any scheduled visits to your doctor.

In rare cases, pravastatin can cause a condition that results in the breakdown of skeletal muscle tissue. This condition can lead to kidney failure. Call your doctor at once if you have unexplained muscle pain or tenderness, muscle weakness, fever or flu symptoms, and dark colored urine.

Aspirin and pravastatin is only part of a complete program of treatment that also includes diet, exercise, and weight control. Follow your diet, medication, and exercise routines very closely.

You may need to take aspirin and pravastatin on a long-term basis for the treatment of high cholesterol.

Store aspirin and pravastatin at room temperature, protected from moisture, heat, and light.

Why Can Taking Low

Throughout the 2021 USPSTF statement on aspirin for primary prevention, the main side effect worry is major bleeding. For the Task Force, major bleeding means bleeding from any site that was serious enough to require a visit to the hospital or a blood transfusion.

The most common type of bleeding due to aspirin use is from the gastrointestinal tract both because aspirin interferes with blood clotting and because aspirin can irritate the lining of the gastrointestinal tract and lead to bleeding. Gastrointestinal bleeding is almost always treatable and a transient problem.

About five times less common than gastrointestinal bleeding, but much more serious, is bleeding within the brainand aspirin increases that risk, too. To put things in perspective, for every thousand people on aspirin for 5-10 years, aspirin would be responsible for about 10 extra gastrointestinal bleeding events and about one extra intracranial bleeding event. Bleeding risks go up with age and with certain medical conditions or with taking other specific medications.

What Other Drugs Will Affect Aspirin And Pravastatin

Many drugs can interact with aspirin and pravastatin. Below is just a partial list. Tell your doctor if you are using:

diltiazem
diabetes medications you take by mouth
a diuretic
a blood thinner such as warfarin
cholestyramine or colestipol
erythromycin or clarithromycin
gemfibrozil , clofibrate , or fenofibrate
niacin
drugs that weaken your immune system such as cancer medicine or steroids, cyclosporine , sirolimus , tacrolimus , and others
an antifungal medication such as itraconazole , fluconazole , or ketoconazole
an ACE inhibitor such as benazepril , captopril , enalapril , lisinopril , quinapril , and others or
a beta-blocker such as atenolol , betaxolol , bisoprolol , labetalol , metoprolol , nadolol , propranolol , timolol , and others.

This list is not complete and there may be other drugs that can interact with aspirin and pravastatin. Tell your doctor about all the prescription and over-the-counter medications you use. This includes vitamins, minerals, herbal products, and drugs prescribed by other doctors. Do not start using a new medication without telling your doctor.

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Things To Consider Before Following These Guidelines

The potential for aspirin in helping cholesterol is not officially accepted or even proven. The context of aspirin helping cholesterol varies based on a number of factors.

Even the positive aspects of how aspirin may be helping cholesterol levels are not 100% scientifically proven or accepted.

So, before you take aspirin to help with cholesterol or come to the judgment that it can help with cholesterol, be sure to consult your healthcare provider.

This is important, as the dosage can also have an impact on how aspirin can help cholesterol.

Aspirin can also interact with many drugs.

Severe interactions can even result in the risk of stomach bleeding. So, if youre taking medications for other health conditions, you must seek medical advice from your healthcare provider.

What Is Baby Aspirin

Normally an aspirin tablet contains 325 mg of the mineral. Baby aspirin, on the other hand, signifies a reduced dose which is around one fourth of the total quantity. This means that baby aspirin is around 81 mg and is used and recommended only in specific cases. In most cases, it is the doctor who advises a patient to consume baby aspirin, and without medical recommendation, the same should be avoided.

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Some Adults Over 60 Should Not Take Low

People over the age of the 60 without heart disease should not take low-dose aspirin daily to prevent a first stroke or heart attack, according to an independent panel of U.S. health experts.

In a draft of new guidelines released online Tuesday, the U.S. Preventive Services Task Force said bleeding risks caused by aspirin outweigh any potential benefits for adults in their 60s who have not had a heart attack or stroke.

Low-dose aspirin has long been recommended for people with high blood pressure, high cholesterol, obesity or other maladies that increase their risks of a heart attack or stroke.

Aspirin use can cause serious harms, and risk increases with age, said task force member and Tufts Medical Center primary care expert Dr. John Wong.

Wong said adults of all ages should consult with their doctors before deciding to start or stop taking aspirin, a pain reliever and blood thinner.

If the guidelines are finalized, they would mark a reversal of the groups 2016 recommendations for preventing a first heart attack and stroke. But they would be more consistent with more recent guidelines issued by other medical organizations.

Public comments on the guidelines are allowed until Nov. 8, after which the group will consider before making a final decision.

Should You Take Baby Aspirin If You Have High Blood Pressure

Advice shifting on aspirin use for preventing heart attacks, health task force says

These days, aspirin at a low dose is most known for heart health protection. If you have chronically high blood pressure and are diagnosed with hypertension, you have a higher chance of having a heart attack or stroke. So, it might make sense to take aspirin to prevent one of those bad events from happening.

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Aspirin And Pravastatin Dosing Information

Usual Adult Dose for Hyperlipidemia:

Initial dose: 40 mg of pravastatin with either 81 mg or 325 mg of buffered aspirin orally once a day. In the event a patient requires a lower dosage of pravastatin, aspirin-pravastatin is also available with 20 mg of pravastatin. Maintenance dose: the pravastatin component may be increased to 80 mg orally once a day if the desired cholesterol levels are not achieved. It is recommended that this drug be taken with a full glass of water, unless the patient is fluid restricted.

Usual Adult Dose for Myocardial Infarction — Prophylaxis:

Usual Adult Dose for Revascularization Procedures — Prophylaxis:

Usual Adult Dose for Ischemic Stroke — Prophylaxis:

Is Baby Aspirin Good For High Blood Pressure

What is normal blood pressure by age?

Low-dose aspirin is known to reduce the risk of heart attack in high-risk patients. It also seems to help lower high blood pressure, but studies looking at this effect yield confusing results. Now there may be an explanation: aspirin only lowers blood pressure when taken at bedtime.

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Aspirin For Prevention: A Look At The Potential Benefits And Risks

Editor’s note: In March 2019, new guidelines were released that recommend more limited use of aspirin for prevention of cardiovascular disease. This is the first installment of a revised blog series.

When my doctor first asked me to take aspirin, I wasn’t so sure I needed it. Since the 1980s, aspirin has a proven record of preventing second heart attacks and strokes, but its use in people without these problems was and remains a source of confusion for both doctors and patients. Why take a medicine that can cause severe bleeding problems if it is not clear that you’ll personally benefit?

As I encountered more patients with questions about aspirin, it eventually dawned on me that the key was to look at the chances it would be beneficial and the chances it would cause harm. For any patient , aspirin for prevention should be taken only if its benefits outweigh its risks.

Let’s look at one patient who is similar to many I’ve seen in the clinic:

Fred is a 58-year-old sales manager with high cholesterol and high blood pressure. He has never had a prior heart attack or stroke, but he smokes a pack of cigarettes daily. While 15 pounds overweight, he eats a healthy, mostly plant-based diet and walks a half an hour during his lunch breaks at work. Fred takes atorvastatin for his cholesterol and lisinopril for hypertension. A friend tells him he should consider taking low-dose aspirin.

What should Fred do next?

Aspirin benefits

Aspirin harms

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In 2004, an investigative study on cardiovascular mortality, and long-term exposure to air pollution was published in Circulation found the following:

Fine particulate air pollution is a risk factor for cause-specific cardiovascular disease mortality via mechanisms that likely include pulmonary and systemic inflammation, accelerated atherosclerosis, and altered cardiac autonomic function

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Study: A Daily Baby Aspirin Has No Benefit For Healthy Older People

“Aspirin use can cause serious harms, and risk increases with age,” he said.

If finalized, the advice for older adults would backtrack on recommendations the panel issued in 2016 for helping prevent a first heart attack and stroke, but it would be in line with more recent guidelines from other medical groups.

Doctors have long recommended daily low-dose aspirin for many patients who already have had a heart attack or stroke. The task force guidance does not change that advice.

The task force previously said a daily aspirin might also protect against colorectal cancer for some adults in their 50s and 60s, but the updated guidance says more evidence of any benefit is needed.

The guidance was posted online to allow for public comments until Nov. 8. The group will evaluate that input and then make a final decision.

Health

Transcript

The independent panel of disease-prevention experts analyzes medical research and literature and issues periodic advice on measures to help keep Americans healthy. Newer studies and a re-analysis of older research prompted the updated advice, Wong said.

Aspirin is best known as a pain reliever but it is also a blood thinner that can reduce chances for blood clots. But aspirin also has risks, even at low doses â mainly bleeding in the digestive tract or ulcers, both of which can be life-threatening.

Is Aspirin And High Blood Pressure A Safe Combination

Is the taking of aspirin and high blood pressure presents a really safe combination? Or is the inclusion part of your treatment to some other condition? Aspirin on its own is an excellent addition to your blood pressure treatment because it reduces the risk of a stroke by preventing blood platelets from forming a clot.

At the same time, it thins your blood and can cause bleeding.

The relationship between the use of aspirin and high blood pressure is because of its ability in lessening your risk of a heart attack or stroke due to blood clotting.

It is also used in anti-inflammation treatment if you are suffering from arthritis.

There are also other health issues that develop when you have high blood pressure that aspirin can be used for.

Still, aspirin is not for everyone, and it needs to be used appropriately and according to your doctors directions only.

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If Your Doctor Recommends Aspirin

If your doctor gives you the OK to take a daily low-dose aspirin, its important to take it exactly as advised. Taking the wrong dose or using aspirin incorrectly may increase your risk for harmful side effects or complications.

Other issues you should review with your doctor before starting aspirin include:

If and how much alcohol you can drink
What medications or supplements you should avoid
If you are undergoing a surgical procedure, whether you should stop your aspirin
Symptoms to watch out for and what to do if they occur

How Aspirin Affects Longevity

Aspirin Linked To Increased Risk Of Heart Failure In Patients With Other Health Issues

Because inflammation contributes to so many aging-related diseases, and because aspirin can lower inflammation, scientists have also been studying whether people who take aspirin tend to live longer overall. They might be spared some of the chronic diseases that claim so many lives, the thinking goes.

But according to two studies published in the New England Journal of Medicine, that may not be the case. Using a large data set of people in Australia and the U.S. of people aged 65 years or older, the researchers found that people taking 100 mg of aspirin every day did not have lower rates of disability than people who were taking placebo. But they did have higher rates of gastrointestinal bleeding in fact, the aspirin group was more likely to die during the studys nearly five years than people who did not take aspirin. Another study analyzing the same data set found that people assigned to take 100 mg of aspirin a day for nearly four years were more likely to die of a variety of causes during the trial than those taking a placebo.

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So Why The Current Controversy Over A Daily Aspirin

The current debate around aspirin therapy started with the recommendations of some physicians, and the decisions of some patients, to start taking daily aspirin even in the absence of any known cardiac risk factors. In this group of people there is no direct or indirect evidence of benefit from daily aspirin use. However, they may be at a small risk of potential complications including a propensity for easier bleeding should they develop a stomach ulcer, experience major trauma such as striking their head in a fall or experience internal bleeding as a result of being involved in a motor vehicle accident.

Who Should Continue Taking Baby Aspirin

People who have had a heart attack or ischemic stroke absolutely need to stay on their aspirin, Simon said.

If you have a history of heart disease or stroke in your immediate family or have had your own history of cardiovascular disease or atherosclerotic disease, your doctor may recommend you continue taking a daily low-dose or baby aspirin.

This is also true for people who have had stents or coronary bypass surgery.

If you are at all confused, consult your doctor.

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