A: I think "aspirin therapy" is crazy. Not only does aspirin increase the risk of potentially lethal internal bleeding, it's also makes blood MORE likely to clot up, not less! And as if these reasons weren't enough to make you flush your aspirin down the commode, there's research about over-the-counter (OTC) pain relievers that's even more damning: It turns out that taking Ibuprofen (Advil, Motrin) in combination with aspirin actually doubles your risk of death from heart-related causes! That's right: According to a study of eight years' worth of medical records of over 7,000 patients conducted by Britain's Medical Research Council (and reported in my favorite medical journal, The Lancet), if you pop Ibuprofen for any reason-say, arthritis pain relief-while engaged in aspirin therapy for heart disease, you're twice as likely to keel over from a heart attack because of the way these two powerful drugs interact. These findings only prove what I've been saying all along-that just because something is available over the counter doesn't mean it's harmless, or that it can't kill you. In fact, a survey by the National Consumers League found that 44 percent of adults KNOWINGLY exceed the recommended dose of OTC pain-relievers-while only 16 percent had even read the warning label! Lunacy. Didn't these people hear about the dangers of possible liver damage from unintentional acetaminophen overdosing? I wonder if these folks would have been so careless if they'd known that Federal officials estimate that annually over 150,000 Americans end up in the emergency department because of complications from OTC pain-relievers-while these "harmless" meds kill 16,000 of us outright every year. Here's my recommendation: Take OTC medicines like aspirin, acetaminophen, and ibuprofen only when you're in pain-and never take them simultaneously or exceed the maximum dosages as listed on the labels (if you can even read them, they're printed so small). And remember, these are DRUGS. Be sure to treat them that way. | 
