Very interesting, and I thought aspirin wasn't that bad... hmmm, what else is the drug industry shoving down our throats without fully knowing the side effects?

"HOUSTON --(May 20, 2003-- Non-steroidal anti-inflammatory drugs (NSAIDs) may damage more of the intestine than previously thought, according to images taken by a swallowable, capsule-size camera pill used in a Baylor College of Medicine study. According to the study, announced today at the Digestive Disease Week 2003 conference in Orlando, capsule endoscopy detected NSAIDs-related injury in the small bowel, an area of the gastrointestinal tract unreachable by other diagnostic tools such as endoscopes. The tool detected small bowel erosions in 62 percent of NSAID users compared to 5 percent of non-NSAID users.

"More than 100 million prescriptions for NSAIDS are written annually in the United States," said Dr. David Graham, lead author of the study and a professor of medicine and molecular virology at Baylor in Houston and chief of the gastroenterology section of Houston VA Medical Center. "The study shows that the patients who take NSAIDs regularly have an increased risk of small intestinal mucosal ulceration and bleeding."

NSAIDs are medications which reduce pain and inflammation over time. The drugs work by affecting chemicals in the body which cause inflammation, the prostaglandins. The same group of chemicals are also in the stomach, leading NSAIDs to cause indigestion, and possibly duodenal or stomach ulceration.

The capsule endoscope, developed by Given Imaging, allows medical professionals to view the entire small intestine. The system uses a disposable miniature video camera contained in a capsule, which the patient swallows. The capsule passes through the digestive tract, transmitting color images, without interfering with the patient's normal activities. Capsule endoscopy diagnoses a range of diseases of the small intestine including Crohn's Disease, Celiac disease, benign and malignant tumors of the small intestine, vascular disorders, medication related small bowel injury and pediatric small bowel disorders.

The study enrolled 40 patients, with a mean age of 49.5, who had arthritis including osteoarthritis, rheumatoid arthritis and gout. Twenty patients took NSAIDS daily for three months. Twenty patients took acetaminophen alone or nothing at all. All patients fasted overnight and underwent capsule endoscopy. The pylorus, the sphincter muscle that controls the lower opening of the stomach where it empties into the upper part of the small intestine, was marked on each video. Two investigators who were not told which therapy the participants received, reviewed each video beginning after the pylorus, where the small intestine starts.

Severe injury to the small bowel was seen in 23 percent of NSAID users compared to no severe injury in the controls. Severe damage was associated with high doses of indomethacin, naproxen, oxyprozocin and ibuprofen.

"This is a significant finding and suggests the need for periodic diagnostic monitoring with capsule endoscopy of patients who take NSAIDs regularly," Graham said."

[Source]

Ok, first off, this information is over 2 years old.. I really don't remember seeing this on any major news outlet.. perhaps you outside of the US may have. This is big fuckin' news! How many of you know an elderly person who regularly takes aspirin as a blood thinner or for other reasons on a daily basis? yeah, apparently..that's not good. Aspirin, is the most commonly used NSAID, and it can causes what? Bleeding in the small intestine. Cute. I'll just add this to the list of "helpful" stuff that's killing me. blah!!


...oh, any thoughts or comments on this?

Eat properly, don't get sick in the first place, no need for pills that make you bleed.

I only take codeine to kill pain, it numbs everything.

anything that is medicine has equal chance to help or harm, mordern medication is very much a double edged sword. look at vioxx it was the most effective drug to treat arthritis, but it raised oyu chance of heart attack stoke and had a chance to kill you. medication is not an exact science which is why i stick tomy natural medicines, lees chance to kill me unless i'm allergic.

You'll never hear the drug industry admitting that.. they're right until people start dying, but you know... they've already made their money at that point.

Vioxx was evil! They marketed that drug as a very safe drug compared to it's rivals, and look.. it turns out to be the worse.

most of the organs in your body are 'bleeding' right now. blood happens to be one of the key components that organs use to work properly.

Eroding and causing bleeding in the membrane of the small intestine (where food is absorbed) allowing blood to enter the digestive system is not normal. That would be the same as just drinking blood.

Here's the thing, this was told to people two years ago, but it's a case of weighing things up. There's tons of old folk who would literally die of strokes and heart attacks, who's blood is the consistancy of syrup, and so for them it's worth it.

The problem is when people self prescribe, they read an article and start taking too much, when they're not really that ill in the first place.
Many medicines have awful side effects, it's just one of those things.

well bleeding out of your ass is not really a good things, unless your really kinky and like to be fucked with knives or large objects like a traffic cone. yeah it helpsthe elderly people who don't have long to live any way, but some people take in their 40-50 and have sometime left. I think tht everything should be disclosed if your taking the meds. I mean drug comapnies sell drugs to pediatritians that have not been properly tested on kids, the kids end up with a host of bad effects like liver cancer or failure renal failure blindness, brain damage hypoxia and the list goes on. Drug companies know these drugs can be potentially lethal to children, but market them to peds any ways. so vioxx is just one example

i <3 your avatar.

don't try to goth our conversation up.

me too. i keep thinking that i should change it since christmas is over and what not, but then i look at it and think nah.

the majority of cases of anal bleeding are caused by internal piles, which are pretty harmless but uncomfortable.

Thus Ditto doesnt take any medication. For anything.

is it not strange to talk about yourself in the third person?

Probably.

That's cool

Probably.

The Vioxx thing is a fucking joke. The heart condition it can cause occurs in the non-Vioxx using population at the rate of 0.0075%

Vioxx raises the odds to 0.015%

So with Vioxx your odds of getting that heart condition go from astronomical to miniscule. The whole thing is nothing but a way for attorneys to suck more money out of the health care system.

judging completely by their avatars, i think Sybs and Ditto would make for spunky-cute-lesbian sex!