Aspirin Pros and Cons: Know Them Before You Take It

Elena Watson
5 min readJun 19, 2020

--

Aspirin is a very popular medicine that many people use to reduce the chances of a heart attack. It is prescribed by many medical professionals to patients who have hypertension, heart rate risks, and other similar problems.

aspirin pros and cons
Source: abcnews.go.com

There are many questions that people have regarding aspirin-like does aspirin raise blood pressure? does it reduce blood pressure? can we take it daily? and many more. To answer all these questions and to give a clear picture of the pros and cons of this medicine, we have brought this post today. Read it out and get your confusion cleared.

Advantages:

The benefit of Aspirin is that it stops the blood from clotting. If your blood doesn’t clot then there will be no blockages and that will protect you from a heart attack. Aspirin helps here, it doesn’t allow blood to get clotted and so there are no blockages in the blood vessels and so your blood smoothy moves in and out of your heart.

aspirin reduce brain strokes
Source: revelpreview.pearson.com

If there is a blockage in your brain then it results in a stroke and Aspirin helps to reduce the strokes too.

Those of you who have a question that Is Aspirin a blood thinner? then yes it is a blood thinner…

Another benefit is that it is readily available in the market at any medical shop without the need of a prescription. Also, it is quite cheap so anybody can afford it.

Disadvantages:

There is a risk of bleeding with this medicine and also it leads to stomach ulcers. Some patients have a problem with asthma when they take it.

aspirin stomach ulcer
Source: researchgate.net

The weightage of advantages and disadvantages can be checked by measuring the patient’s medical records. The patient’s problems will be thoroughly checked by his doctor, the risk of getting a heart attack will be checked. If the risk is too high then getting a side effect due to it then aspirin will be prescribed to him immediately.

Should you take it daily?

Many people have this question that whether they should take aspirin daily or not? Is it safe for them to have it daily or they should avoid it considering some side effects? The right answer to this question can be given by your doctor as he/she will check you thoroughly, know your problems, and then advise you on the right solution for this.

In most of the cases, if you have any of the following scenarios then a doctor tells you to take aspirin on a daily basis.

  1. If you had a heart attack or a stroke in the past.
  2. You haven’t gone any heart attack or stroke but you are at a high risk of getting one.
  3. You haven’t got a heart attack but you have undergone bypass surgery or placed a stent in the artery.
  4. If you have a couple of heart disease risk factors such as diabetes, high blood pressure, or smoking habits and you are an older man or woman above 50 then your doctor might ask you to take the medicine daily to reduce the heart attack risks.

In the above case, the patient will be prescribed a daily dose of 81mg for protection. A patient who already had a heart attack is prescribed aspirin then it is called secondary prevention as the event is being prevented from happening the second time.

The dark area or confusing part is primary prevention. The patient is at risk of getting a heart attack but there is not a clear way that shows that the advantages are outweighing the disadvantages. In this case, it gets difficult for the doctor to take a call whether the patient should be given a daily dose of the medicine or not.

The risk of internal bleeding has to be checked as it is a serious problem. Many patients have faced the internal bleeding problem due to it, mostly the people having age 65 and above.

How effective aspirin is in reducing blood pressure?

Many people often have the question that does aspirin lower blood pressure? Yes, it helps in reducing mild to moderate blood pressure. But, some recent studies conducted have shown that it only helps in reducing the blood pressure when it is taken at bedtime.

aspirin reducing blood pressure
Source: helpguide.org

There was an experiment conducted and it showed that it helped only when it was taken while going for sleep at night. When it was taken in the morning, it didn’t help. These results are not yet in action as more research has to be done in this direction.

Baby aspirin is still recommended on a daily basis for the patients who are at risk of getting a heart attack. For the patients who are not at a risk must avoid it.

If you are having the problem of high blood pressure then you should consult with your doctor and he/she will guide you on the right steps that you need to follow to bring the blood pressure down. There might be a possibility that they suggest some other medication apart from the aspirin which is not having any side-effects on your body.

So, here was an overview of aspirin- its advantages, disadvantages on the body. Aspirin-blood pressure connection is very old and it is seen that it helps in reducing the blood pressure.

But, if you are facing the problem of high blood pressure or hypertension then consult a good medical professional first and according to his/her guidance, start using aspirin.

Browse Health ClubFinder for daily health and fitness updates!

--

--

Elena Watson
0 Followers

I am a Fitness Freak and also a blogger who always love to share useful information related to Health and Fitness. Blog: https://healthclubfinder.org