Should I continue to take daily aspir... - British Heart Fou...
Should I continue to take daily aspirin? I consider myself healthy although I have had a heart bypass.
You should discuss it with your doctor.
A few months before my bypass I read Esselstyn and Ornish books, and then the China study too. I immediately adopted the WFPB diet, that is now 5 years ago. I talk to my GP and she reluctantly did not object to giving up statins 2 years ago as my Cholesterol ratios are all good. I now still take daily aspirin, and have done so for about 15 years now so I am wondering if that is necessarily the best option a I get older, just turned 69. I don’t think my GP will have any other opinion but to continue the daily low dose. Just wondering what others do. Even though I still have atherosclerosis I do consider with my bypass and healthy eating the odds of a blockage or bleeding are probably very similar.
Ah! See my other reply. I would still talk to your doctor, just to be on the safe side, then make your own mind up. I came off the Aspirin because of side effects but I am still on Clopidogrel. Mind you I haven't been WFPB for a year yet. Your Cholesterol ratios are good, what is your blood pressure like? If your BP is down and your Cholesterol levels good then your arteries might be clearing.
I have been on a Whole Food Plant Based (WFPB) diet since March 2018 and the evidence of my blood pressure, cholesterol and pulse (50-60) indicate that my arteries are clearing. So, it took only 8 months. My doctor is gradually taking me off all the meds, the diuretics, beta blockers and statins have gone. I am down to just Clopidogrel.
well done on coming off most of the meds. Perhaps Clopidogrel is an option for me too rather than aspirin - maybe I will ask the GP on this.
My BP is typically 130/70 so not brillaint but OK, resting pulse about 55-60 ish. My TC is up over 5 but the ratios are good TC/HDL 2.4, Tri/HDL 1.08.
I am not convinced WFPB will actually clear the arteries but at least stop them getting worse. I have modified my diet too over recent years and not strictly all WFPB - i have re-introduced olive oil, and have oily fish regulary and occasional lean chicken, I have been following the PHC since I attended their conference last year - this is all about real food phcuk.org/ and seems to conflict with the WFPB mantra.
Thanks for posting the link. Very interesting. I think the aspirin benefit is in reducing clotting in the event of a plaque eruption I would be wary of not taking if not having issues with bleeding.
All the info I have read about WFPB talk about reversing heart disease. In my case, if my arteries were still blocked my BP would still be raised.
You really do , ideally , need to discuss your meds with your Cardiologist. Mine took me off aspirin when he put me on Rivaroxaban, but only because I asked the question after one week post Ablation on both “Did I still need it? “ We are all complex individuals, and causes & symptoms of disease vary so much !!
May work for some but not for others. Here is a heart patience's experience:
I am a 49 yrs with no family history of any cardiovascular diseases. Last year I had a heart attack followed by a 5 bypass surgery. Yes 5 ! At the time, the carotid artery atherosclorosis was <50%. Since then I have been following very strict WFPBNO / Dr. Esselstyn diet to the T with exercise almost everyday. Lost 30 lbs and my total cholesterol is ~120, LDL ~60, triglycride-100 and I have being feeling great until today. In the last 15 months my carotid artery blockage progressed from 50% to 80-99% range. We, including my doc, are very disappointed and shocked with this rapid progress despite the lifestyle change.
Jimmyq, looks like we are following similar paths. I went WFBP 5 years ago and watched Forks over Knives then. I watched Plant Pure nation yesterday, a follow up at it re-inforced the messages. I am interested in your BP measurement as you say this is good evidence to improved arterial function - would you mind posting. i have however been experimenting in re-introducing what is considered 'heathey fats' etc full fat greek yougurt and nuts. interestingly something I watched yesterday said you shouldnt eat nuts if you have atherosclerosis!
The ideal BP is 120/80. Mine has been as high as 240/140 but went down to 190/100 with treatment in 2016. I still had a mini-stroke in 2017 though. It is now 120/80. I keep a record.
The ideal cholesterol is below 5. Mine was 6.5 for years, nothing budged it until this diet. It is now 3.7.
My weight was 14.5st and is now 12.5st, the same as when I was in my twenties.
I eat loads of nuts: ground almonds in my porridge for breakfast and about 80gms mixed nuts in the evenings.
mant thanks - all very much similar to my experiences although my BP was never that high. I assume you are on statins. My TC reduced to below 3 but has increased to over 5 since I stopped them but as I said before my ratios are good. I also lost about 10kg and now maintain a weight of 68kg which is about a BMI of 23.5.
If you have blocked arteries, and you have, I recommend that you watch the film "Forks Over Knives". It will show you that you can clear out your arteries. It is on Netflix, YouTube and a website of the same name. It is about medical dietary research, including a massive study of 800,000 Chinese people. You might find it helpful, I did.
In the film, there is a bloke with 27 diseases. After 6 months on a WFPB diet he was down to 1.
The problem is Bob, even though you consider yourself healthy, you're really not. You have atherosclerosis, you've probably had it for decades and you'll have it until you die.
All you can do is try and keep it at bay with lifestyle changes and with medication. If you drop your vigilance for a moment then your atherosclerosis will be back with a vengeance.
In particular you're higher risk for a stroke or a heart attack. If either of those events should occur then the 75mg aspirin you took that morning may well be the thing that saves your life.
Seriously Bob, keep taking your aspirin, because dying due to some daft clickbait article you read on the internet would be "Darwin Award" level stupidity.
darwinawards.com/darwin/dar...
Another example of some good points well made
I read an article from a Swedish universtiy and it said that if you take 10 people from the general population over 60 - 6 of them will have atherosclerosis when I said this to my cardiogist she said its probably more , therefore I do not consider it as being ill , it is a condition that I know about , that others do not so therefore I am at a advantage as I am halting mine with statins and diet , I have a calcium score of 65 which was found by chance, I was told to follow a med diet , I pay to see all my doctors privately and they told me fish 5 days a week chicken and turkey 2 days, no saturated fat , can eat nuts and olive oil.
I had a quadruple bypass last year. Bypasses and stents treat the worse affected arteries but with CHD others will be affected to some degree. As I also have PAD (peripheral arterial disease) a clot in a major leg artery could cost me my leg! I will not be stopping aspirin any time soon based on what looks like "quackery" to me. Sadly whilst the internet can offer people good advice it also allows flawed studies to reach a wider audience!
When you read these sorts of articles - often in newspapers - I find it's always worth going back to the study itself, or looking to see what the NHS site itself says about them - they generally cover studies that have been widely reported in newspapers.
I link to the NHS review which covers both the study and the way it was reported. In fact it was a reputable study of people without heart disease which showed - and the NHS agreed - that people without heart disease should not take a daily aspirin as the bleeding risk outweighed any benefit.
nhs.uk/news/medication/aspi...
However this was NOT a study of daily aspirin in people with heart disease ( i.e. us!), as similar trials have already shown that for us the benefit of aspirin outweighs the bleeding risk.
So this study in no way changes current NHS advice . To be fair to the original link, it reported accurately that the advice not to take a daily aspirin was only for 'healthy people who don't have heart disease'. However, I wouldn't take my health advice from this sort of unregulated site - weirdly, people often seem to trust any random site rather than the BHF or NHS!
My congratulations Bobaxford on the dietary changes you have made, but you still have heart disease, so I would keep taking the aspirin. As you are at high risk I would also follow NHS and BHF advice and go back on the statins, particularly if your Total cholesterol is above 4 or LDL above 2. Statins also have benefits beyond cholesterol lowering - my husband has excellent diet and exercise but there is no way I would ever want him to stop the statins!
Yes, this another one of those confliting issues I have been concerned about. the reason I stopped statins was that my cholesterol numbers (after WFPB diet and 10kg weight loss) were good and having read a number of books about statins was concerened about statins depleteing Co-Q10 which is need for cell growth. I think the jury is still out on the actual real benefits of statins, but you are correct in that they do offer a very small benefits in preventing heart attacks, but it is not as great as the BHF say as the 30% relative risk reduction turns out to be about a 2% absolute risk reduction - so I think its marginal and a slightly reduced risk of a heart attack vs potentially other issues such as muscle damage (maybe including the heart muscle too!).
Besides reducing cholesterol statins have two other benefits; i) they reduce irritation a frequent precursor to plaque formation and II) they stabilise the plaque. Personally if my cholesterol came right down I would opt to take a very low maintenance dose. The average age of cardic surgery has increased by ten years since their introduction.
Agreed, there are benefits of statins beyond the cholesterol lowering and stabilising the plaque is I think the main benefit.
So on one side we have the NHS, BHF, ACC, AHA, ESC etc etc and on the other side a few maverick doctors who make a lot of money selling books. I spent my working life evaluating research, and I know who I'd trust and it's not Kendrick and Malhotra! It's up to you of course, but I think it's sensible to do as much as possible to reduce risk and to trust your cardiologists.
Yes, it’s the establishment vs a few Mavericks, it’s it bit like Brexit! Unfortunately the few Mavericks can agree either - WFPB vs LCHF diets - I am torn between the two.
Then trust the scientific consensus not the equivalent of climate-change deniers - it's how science works.
In diet, the consensus is for the Mediterranean diet, but at least the WFPB doesn't do any harm, unlike the LCHF.
Scientists are of course also very anti-Brexit, but let's not go there!
Any mention of Brexit should require an instant donation to the BHF!
😉
Good idea!
That will cost me a fortune!
Milkfairy, I appreciate your advice as always and will definitely discuss with my GP. I am interested in experiences of others and thank all those who have responded as we learn by sharing the knowledge we gain by living with our conditions.
Thank you, all very interesting but still leaves me somewhat conflicted re ‘healthy fats’.
This is not my story, it was reported in a heart disease newsgroup. The point is that: 1. Different diets work for different people.
2. There are many other factors to heart disease, diet is just one on a long list.
I am amazed that no one has mentioned insulin levels. Clogged arteries do not happen by accident. Damaged cholesterol doesn't start clinging to artery walls by accident. Widow maker cardiac events do not happen by accident. Before making any decision regarding fats you need to find out what is going with your insulin levels, especially if your insulin levels are going through the roof trying to keep your sugar levels stable, damaging everything in sight during the whole process.
Hi, Tony here.
Am a little nervous of coming off medication. I dont smoke or drink and am not overweight. Despite that I had a heart attack and quadruple bye pass last february. I never had a bad cholesterol reading in my life or a worrying blood pressure test. So, good readings do not always seem to count. I cannot make much change in terms of lifestyle (trying to cut out sugar) and have concluded that the medications are my best hope for the future. It seems that my problem was genetic.
I will probably ask the doctor to have another look at my prescriptions because I am disappointed at my energy levels after 3 and a half months but I would be very reluctant to change without medical advice.
Bye the way, when I came home from hospital feeling very groggy I made the mistake of looking up all this stuff on netflix and found myself watching medical people shouting at each other on American tv proclaiming that high cholesterol was great / statins a disaster etc, etc. Got to trust the UK / Irish hospital systems I guess.
Yes, it is very, very confusing for us patients knowing what is the best thing to do when there is so much controversy about lots of the drugs and good/bad diets etc. I have spent over 5 years following all the latest publications and attending conferences, but alas there are no easy answers- just like Brexit. We either follow the establishment view or row our own boat.
BTW, I still continue to take my daily aspirin - it is a well established drug and no significant side effects (apart from potential internal bleeding which I assume you would get some evidence showing first so you could do something about it. The blood thinning properties seem to be a good insurance against blot colts forming - which would probably happen with no warning and could mean a fatal HA.
Interesting, was there any indication that he was having internal bleeding in terms of symptoms and how serious was the result of the ruptured ulcer and I hope he is now ok. As matter of interest was he poorly beforehand and had he been prescribed other medication in addition to the aspirin?
No obvious signs of bleeding just drop in haemoglobin, he has dialysis so blood tests are done weekly.
Luckily he was already in hospital when the ulcer ruptured, surgeon told me he didn't expect my husband to survive the surgery but he did.
He's previously had a heart attack, has stent, 3rd degree heart block, has a pacemaker and severe mitral valve regurgitation. He's on lots of tablets but the only heart related ones were Aspirin and a statin, now on Warfarin which is equally worrying !
bantam12
That is such a worry for you....I have chest pain just reading this. Your husband must have a guardian angel.
If he was a cat he would have used up his 9 lives years ago !
He has a very complex history, cancer, kidney failure, heart stuff, hep c, the list goes on and on, docs are always amazed he's still alive !
Right now he's got more energy and get up and go than I have 🤣
Glad he is still able to get on with his life, and I am sure it’s all down to your care and support. Hopefully you are looking after yourself too. God bless.
Hi bobaxford,
My husband has CVD and Atrial fibrillation. He is on daily aspirin and apixaban.
The aspirin damaged his oesophagus and he ended up having an endoscopy.
He still takes his aspirin as advised by his Cardiologist and now takes Omeprazole.
He had to weigh up his very strong family history of premature deaths from heart attacks and his younger brother's Cardiac arrest and heart attack and not taking aspirin.
BTW the usual sign of upper gut internal bleeding is dark black tar like poo known as melena or vomiting up sick that looks like it contains coffee grounds.
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