Sawbones: A Marital Tour of Misguided Medicine - Sawbones: Aspirin

Episode Date: October 1, 2017

Join Dr. Sydnee as she shocks Justin with the revelation that aspirin isn't for headaches anymore, along with plenty of other revelations about this wonder pill. Music: "Medicines" by The Taxpayers

Saubones is a show about medical history, and nothing the hosts say should be taken as medical advice or opinion. It's for fun. Can't you just have fun for an hour and not try to diagnose your mystery boil? We think you've earned it. Just sit back, relax, and enjoy a moment of distraction from that weird growth. You're worth it. that weird growth. You're worth it. Alright, time is about to books. One, two, one, two, three, four. I'm the the the

the the the the the the the the the the the the the the the the the the the

the the the the the the the the the the the the the the the the the the the the the the the the the the the the the the the For the mouth. Wow. Hello, everybody, and welcome to Saul Bones, a marital tour of Miss Catted Medicine.

I'm your co-host Justin McElroy. And I'm Sydney McElroy. Sydney, you have cleared up a lot of medical misconceptions for me over the years, but I don't think any are as, we're stunning as when we're watching commercial for Aspirin. And you looked at me and said, you know, you shouldn't take Aspirin for a headache. Because like, at me and said, you know, you shouldn't take aspirin for a headache. Because like for me growing up, I thought that that's what everybody did,

like aspirin for a headache is like a thing. Well, I'm not a major thing. Let me clarify. I'm not saying an aspirin can't work for your headache. I'm saying that there are other over-the-counter pain relievers that may be a better choice for your headache, and there are a lot of reasons why someone may not be able to or why it might not be advisable for them to just take aspirin whenever they need to for a headache. I rarely recommend to people to just take an aspirin whenever they feel like it for aches and pains or headaches

or anything like that. Let's also double back and double clarify that until that exact moment, I thought aspirin and Tylenol were the same thing. So. And they are definitely not. So they're definitely not. So why don't you educate me about what aspirin actually is? Sure.

So first of all, you aren't the first person to want to know about aspirin. Oh, good. No. So thank you to Mary, and Reina, and Jen, and Matthew, and Mark, who have all suggested this topic. So, aspirin is probably older than you know about. It's been around a long time. Really? Yeah.

So, the name, the chemical name for aspirin is acetylcellic acid. You can imagine that never really caught on. Yeah, nobody tends to call it that like in the store, you know, go and ask for an acetylcellic acid please. It's a mild analgesic meaning it is a pain reliever, works on pain, but it's mild. It's not, it's certainly nowhere among the strongest of our pain reliever medications. And I, like I said, I don't know that it would be my first over-the-counter choice for most pain, depending on the patient. It relieves pain by blocking the production of substances called prostaglandins.

So this happens through something called cyclowoxygenase, which is an enzyme and it inhibits it, and then you don't get these prostaglandins. And then the result of that is that your nerve endings aren't a sensitive to pain because the prostate landings sensitize them. And so this decensitizes it. And there you go. Let's paint. That's just how aspirin works in case anybody is really fascinated with how aspirin works. Literally able to process the information you just departed. It well, sometimes you hear things thrown around like in commercials about

things like Cox one inhibitors and Cox two inhibitors and you cannot giggle when I say, go ahead. Please be professory Dr. McElroy, please continue your dissertation. But that's where this comes from is the inhibition of this enzyme and then it blocks the prostaclantins and then this also will later lead to our discovery that aspirin can do other things other than help with mild headaches. So we have found evidence that early man chew was, would chew on things

that contain salicylic acid. Like natural, this is like naturally occurring in the world. Salicylic acid is naturally found in a variety of plants. Okay. So let me start with that. The most common thing I'm going to talk about is willow bark. So willow bark contains salicylic acid. Any kind of herbal remedy that is suggesting willow bark is

probably suggesting it because of the presence of salicylic acid. So you always are down on natural remedies, but this seems like apparently the table's been turned. I am not down on natural remedies. I like the fact that aspirin has many, many studies to support its use. Fair enough. I am also not advising anyone to chew on Willow Bark.

It's hard to control dosage, I would imagine. Yeah, exactly. And there's like a lot of other stuff in Willow Bark that isn't Salicylic acid. Like, bark things. Like wood stuff. Like the wood stuff. You know, there's wood parts in there.

So it contains, so there's some evidence that early man knew that didn't know the about Salicylic acid, but new, I don't feel good. I chewed on this Willow Bark. I feel better. Hooray. I chewed on this willow bark. I feel better. Array. I did it. Great. Good job. And they mushed it with their little hands into pills. It's all the other cavemen.

Not yet. Not yet. We're not there yet. So there's, and this is, this is kind of widespread. There are ancient Samaritan writings, the Ebers Papyrus from Egypt, who, that all referenced the use of plants that specifically contain salicylic acid. Like I said, most commonly, Willow bark is mentioned, but it depends on where in the world you are as to what was available. Meto-sweet is another common one. But I mean, it's in jasmine, beans, peas, clover.

There's lots of different plants that different ancient peoples would have had access to that contained salicylic acid. So are you telling me if I ate enough peas over your head? No, I don't want to say that. It would depend on, I'd have to know the exact amount of salicylic acid per pea and then every every plant that contains it, you got to wonder about its bioavailability, like how much of it can you absorb based on how it is. Okay, 2000 peas per pound. So, I mean, if you want to eat 2000 peas, like how much of it can you absorb based on how it is. Okay, 2000 Ps. Compact, so. I mean, if you want to eat 2000 Ps,

I'm not gonna stop you. You would stop me. That's incorrect. You would stop me from eating 2000 Ps. Peace are very small to be fair. So you're saying maybe I could eat 2000 Ps? Is that your problem? I'm saying that I've never considered,

I've never considered measuring Ps by the individual unit as to like how many I mean think about it you would say like I had two chin tenders and 58 peas Talks that way and that doesn't sound like very many you say 58 peas and I think that's probably a very small amount of peas I've never considered the amount of peas I've never considered the amount of size of your list of that weight, about 70 pieces. That would make it very hard to calculate calorie content. So, in all of these mentions of the use of these salicylate, salicylic acid salicylate, I'm using these words interchangeably,

containing plants, it's usually used for pain or for feverish. That's usually how it's referenced as being, you know, employed as a medicine. Ancient Chinese medicine also advised willobark specifically for a variety of illnesses. Like I said, pain in fevers also things like rheumatic fever, specifically a goiter. They recommended willobark for colds probably because of the aches and pains and fevers and all those things that came with it. And even bleeding, which was probably a bad idea, because as we're going to talk about

aspirin does, to some extent, then your blood. So using aspirin for bleeding is not a good idea. But all those other things, well, not about goiter either. But anyway, I could see where they got some of these ideas, because there probably was some response from the Willow Bark. Hippocrates advised powdered Willow Bark for headaches, and also for minor aches and pains and fivers and the same kind of thing everybody'd been using it for.

In addition, he specifically had a recipe for a kind of tea made of willow bark that he recommended you give to women during labor to help with labor pains. So if somebody is having a baby, you can give that person some willow bark tea. Well, there's anything to you, won't we? Just boiled leaves. Well, leaves, right? That's it. Yeah. Right? Yes. Yeah. Like, definitely, that's how one of the negatives on that, on that 50s menu that we saw at that coast side place today, we, um, the boiled leaves was the like 50 slang for tea. Why don't you say tea? Like, like, if you want, if you want, yeah, diner slang, if you want,

if you want black coffee with sugar, you say, I want to burn out with sand. Okay. And if you want if you want yeah, diner slang if you want if you want black coffee with sugar You say I want a brunette with sand. Okay, and if you went tea just say I would like some boiled leaves Which would make you not want tea? I think I would change my order if somebody said all you want boiled leaves I go no So it's well known throughout the Roman world that by then that you should use Willow bark for things and anything with solicits in them. Plenty, road of the use, plenty of the elder, road of the use of Willow extensively in natural history, including chapter 37, which is called the Willow 14 Remedies. So at least 14 Remedies. Perfect. Each one of these is different in terms of what you add to it.

So willow plus alcohol, for instance, is great for killing your libido. Okay. So if you need to do that, if you want to lessen your sex drive, willow bark, alcohol, no sex drive. But the willow bark, wouldn't that, if it's sped up your blood flow, wouldn't that be countered? Well, it doesn't, it doesn't speed up your blood flow. It thins out the blood. It prevents, it stops the kind of clotting ability.

Right, all right. I'm with you. So not completely, but it stops parts of the clotting ability. He also recommended it, again, like I said, anything that he, like bleeding is a bad idea and he did recommend it for mouth bleeding specifically. It's probably not a good plan. Corns, calluses, acne, blindness. He thought it was good for a diuretic.

If you have an abscess, if you, it's not like they were so stoked to find one that did do something. It did something. Like when, we know this is something, let's try it for everything. And you see this, it's very common if they found, you know, if you found some sort of herbal substance that worked as a laxative, it would be used for everything.

If you found something that made you vomit, those were always very popular. See, something that made you pee was very popular. It results you could see or feel or actually like tangible results were very popular. And he's taking me off right now because he's perverting one of our mainstays of curals cure nothing. He's turning this thing that does cure something into a cure all. That's true. It's perverting our our our slogan.

You could make the argument that it's not aspirin doesn't cure a lot of things. Okay. But I mean, if you have a all right, that's debatable. I mean, I guess if you have a headache and you take an aspirin and it goes away We have cured the headache But if you have a fever because you've got the flu and you take an aspirin and your fever goes away. You didn't cure your flu Okay, yes, so Ear diseases gout affections of the sinews

Whatever that wouldn't mean as a Depilatory, I don't know how aspirin would remove hair, but There you go Any of these things and then by the way that recipe of alcohol plus aspirin Eager plus willobark equals no sex drive If you do that daily it will go away forever According to plenty of the elder a lot of free time so Watch that concoction unless you want that unless that's your intended effect then that's totally fine, but otherwise be careful. For the next few centuries people that's like Willow Barker become part of like the common pharmacopia at this point, it was an accepted handed down, you know, through oral histories and folk medicine and various cultures that this is something we use. It's active. it works, you know, but nobody was like studying it to see, you know, why does Willow Bark do something?

There are a couple exceptions to this in 1763 Reverend Edward Stone in London wanted to study the use of Willow Bark for malaria. He was looking for something that might work like quinine we knew did because of the Peruvians and Kona bark, which we had already realized was active against malaria. So he was looking for something like that that would be easier and cheaper and closer to home. On prices on that bark, buck wild after exactly, exactly're exactly right it was hard to get and so this was kind of a search for something else he was actually guided by the doctrine of signatures which we've talked about before where is that like like yours like exactly like yours like which means he looked for something not that looked like malaria because you can't find something that looks like malaria, but

they knew that malaria kind of came from like murky still waters, you know, because that's where the mosquitoes would lay their egg graphs and that's where the mosquitoes lived. And so he looked in that same environment and looked for something to grow that grew there and he found the willow bark And he tasted the willow he chewed on it and he noted that it was bitter much like the Peruvian Bark was and so he thought, you know what maybe this will work too It was noted that it didn't work as well As this encounter bark which made sense because that contains quinine and this just contains

Salicylic acid which made sense because that contains quinine and this just contains cell silic acid. But it did seem to work because the fever would go away. So, but like he was just discovering the aspirin already did that, right? Like we already knew that. We already knew that. Yeah. We kind of already knew that. But still pretty proud of himself. Yeah, and for a lot of people suffering from malaria, it was at least something that brought them some relief, would temporarily break the fever. And I'm, you know, like we've talked about before, it's not like malaria is uniformly fatal. So if you feel better and then you do get better, you would probably think it cured you, even though it didn't have the quinoid in it. There's also some studies in the 1800s where Thomas McLaughlin studied it

for roomatism, but there really isn't a lot of people, there were a lot of people who were sitting down and saying, this is Willow Bark, it works for something why the heck does this happen? Until 1828, when Johann Buckner, a pharmacy professor in Munich, isolates Salasin, Salasilla Gassad, the active ingredient in Willow bark. And says, this is the thing, this compound. This is what's... No, no, we're eating bark, everyone. No, you don't have to chew the bark. I have, I have narrowed it down to this exact powder liquid, whatever substance,

this substance. And this is what it is. There were two Italian chemists who had kind of beat them to it a couple years before, but it was an impure form and it wasn't what the future work that we now know as aspirin was built upon. In 1838, there was an Italian chemist, Raphael Peere, who was able to create from Salison the acid form of that salicylic acid, and that was something that could be stabilized and used for pain relief. Different compounds are either stable or exist in different forms. The salicylic acid form was something that you could have a powder of intake. Okay, I don't quite understand. So like, what's salicylic acid in Willow bark?

Salicylic acid is in the Willow bark, but it's in the it's in the first compound of Salison. And you have to use you use chemistry to turn it into Salicyle Gasset. Good enough for me. Thank you. Does that work? Okay. We'll just we'll stick with that without getting into how you how you do that. I think I don't think that would be as interesting for everyone maybe. All right. Tweety Sydney. She's the way that we're. However, it was really hard on the stomach in that form they found. If you took pure salicylic acid and ate it, that was, that would like give you nausea and

belly cramps and maybe some bleeding ulcers. She needs some fillers in there that they didn't have a gel coating. That's the problem. They needed gel cap coating. Well, a little more than that, a little more than that. This pure acid form is really hard on this stomach. They need to do something that can help soften that. So in 1858, a French chemist, Charles Gerhardt, buffered the acid.

If you ever thought of buffering, if you've ever heard these terms about buffered aspirin, that's what they're buffered it. They buffered the acid, if you've ever thought of, like, buffering, if you've ever heard these terms about buffered aspirin. That's what they're, they buffered it. They buffered the acid, the salicylic acid was sodium and made acetyl salicylic acid, which will become aspirin. But he kind of lost interest in it. So he just made this, he made this like amazing discovery.

Here is the formula for acetyl salicylic acid, this amazing thing. And then the formula for a Cedal Salicylic Acid, this amazing thing. And then like nothing came of it. And then the formula was rediscovered in 1899 by Felix Hoffman, who under the direction of Arthur Eikengrun, they were working for Bayer, a German company called Bayer. You may recognize Bayer. Bayer. As an aspirin, a bear aspirin.

Anyway, they were working for Bayer. They're looking for a way to take Salicylic acid and turn it into something that is buffered that everybody can take. That'll be gentler on the stomach. And they probably just rediscover this old formula and go, hey, this will work. So they reproduce it and they've got aspirin and they convinced the people who ran bear like you've got to make this. This is going to be huge. He actually tested it out, Hoffman tested it out on his dad because his dad had terrible arthritis and his dad was like, this is gangbusters. You win. I'm sorry. I'm so hung up on Charles Gerhard who did this and he made this discovery and then at the end he was like, I cool. Anyway, I did that. I got to get it back upstairs. It's time for dinner. I don't know if he didn't recognize the significance maybe of what he'd done.

Well, we know about it though, right? So like he hadn't told somebody. I don't, I don't yeah. That is why. Anyway, so Bear got to make it because they got it now. Good for them. Good for them. And what did they, how did that go? Anyway, so bear got to make it because they got it now. They have the formula. Go for them. And what did they, how did that go? And so in February 7th, 1900 aspirin is patented. And?

So acetylcellus acid is now become aspirin and you're probably wondering, why did they call it that? Why did they call it that? Well, and I'm going to tell you why they called it that. But first, we got to go to the building department. Let's go. The medicines, the medicines that ask you let my car do for the mouth. All right, said you were going to delight me with the reason that aspirin is called aspirin and not aced aced aced aced aced aced aced aced aced aced aced aced aced aced aced aced aced aced aced aced aced aced aced aced aced aced aced aced aced aced aced aced aced aced aced aced aced aced aced aced aced aced aced aced aced aced aced aced aced aced aced aced aced aced aced aced aced aced aced aced aced aced aced aced aced aced aced aced aced aced aced aced aced aced aced aced aced aced aced aced aced aced aced aced aced aced aced aced aced aced aced aced aced aced aced aced aced aced aced aced aced aced aced aced aced aced aced aced aced aced aced aced aced aced aced aced aced aced aced aced aced aced aced aced aced aced aced aced aced aced aced aced aced aced aced aced aced aced aced aced aced aced aced aced aced aced aced aced aced aced aced aced aced aced aced aced aced aced aced aced aced aced aced aced aced aced aced aced aced aced aced aced aced aced aced aced aced aced aced aced aced aced ac I see it. I see it. I should. I see it all. I'll sell a little gas. Well, for one thing, that would be really hard to market.

Antagme. Yeah. Nobody's going to remember that. Never. So they obviously, and this is common with medications that come up with brand names that are easier to remember and say. And the last run. I don't know what that is. I just made that one. Yeah. That you can have the one for free drug companies. Big drug. Some of them sound like I think what they're supposed to do. I don't know what that is. I just made that one. You can have the one for free drug companies. Big drug. Some of them sound like, I think what they're supposed to do.

You think of Sonata, which is a sleep medication. Doesn't it sound like? It sounds like a sleepy. It sounds sleepy. Anyway, the way they came up with this, the A is for acetyl. So there you go. The SPIR, the SPIR, SPIR comes from the plant that they specifically derived this salicylic acid from. So they didn't actually make the original aspirin from Willow Bark.

They made it from the MetaSuite I mentioned earlier, which the scientific name is Spirae Omeria. And so that's just where they got the salicylic acid from. So anyway, so A and SPIR for that, the I-N is just a, it was a popular suffix that they stuck on medications at the time. A lot of things ended with I-N and so A, SPIR, they stuck the I-N on there and they got aspirin. So they've seen it as I-X a lot on medicines these days, right? Sometimes, yeah, I guess you can see that, yeah. Chantix, and there's probably other ones. I don't know. Well, it's like, well, but well, but you're a trend. That's an I N. That's true. The I N is just a popular thing to stick on the end of a medication. Sometimes if you actually look at like the chemical name, like the

the compound name of some medications, it the end will tell you what kind of medicine it is. For instance, like, there are a lot of cholesterol medicines that end with statin, because that's the class they're in, the statin class. And it tells you that that medicine, aspirin was just, they just thought this would sell well. So there you go. So a brand name. And the real one. Asperin was an originally, yes.

And it actually, it is still trademarked, but it's violated constantly, but there is someone who owns it. To problem with trademark law in the US, or bringing one of the problems, and I'm sure I look under the control, but if you don't defend it constantly, it eventually loses its teeth. Well, and if you wanna,

I am not gonna get into the entire trademark history of the word aspirin because it is a long convoluted story about patents and trademarks that crosses international waters and involves like Well, I'll get into this involves like treaties because aspirin was made initially by the German company bear So they had the patent they had the trademark on the name aspirin And then they began selling it all over the world and a lot of stuff went wrong With this process and then it was sold and it was sold back and I and it was sold back. And if you're interested in that kind of history,

trademark law and that kind of stuff, I would highly recommend reading the story of aspirin. I'm not gonna tell you all that because I'm a doctor. But anyway, it was initially a powder. When they sold it, they sold little packets of powder. But then they turned it into tablets in 1915. A lot easier.

Yeah, a lot easier to take. And primarily it was marketed to doctors They would just send the little packets to doctors. No, they would say because at the time it was actually Really it was considered unethical to market directly to consumers Wouldn't it be nice if that's still if that's still existed But at the time you wouldn't have made a commercial for aspirin telling consumers to buy it, you would send packets to a doctor and say, hey, I think you should give this to your patients. It's great. And then hopefully your doctor tries it or

gives it to patients. They get good reviews. And then they start recommending it to patients as a result. That was the goal. So the trademark, like I said, from the beginning was challenged like country by country, almost from the, like the initial introduction of aspirin because it was, I mean, it was a huge success. It was a smash success. People started taking it and it did something. And so many medications at this point in history didn't do anything other than secretly make you drunk or high. That would just be the slogan like it does something. That's it. That's it.

It does something and there were so many different illnesses that we couldn't really treat but would cause things like fevers and aches and pains and this would relieve those. Alleluia and everybody had pain and nobody knew what to take for it. Again, here you go. A pill that actually figures it. So World War I came along created shortages shortages of phenol, which was necessary in the production process of aspirin. It's not, as I mentioned, it's not the component of aspirin, but you use it as you produce

aspirin. But it was also used in explosives. So, yeah, exactly. This led to decrease amounts being shipped to Germany, which was very hard for bear because they needed it to make their aspirin and they're making lots of aspirin and trying to protect their trade marks so they keep the aspirin flooding the markets So they needed more phenol to make the aspirin and obviously Britain isn't gonna send them any of course at this point So and they also didn't want Didn't want the US shipping their phenol to the UK because they were using it for

explosives. Right. So they've tried to find a way to get the phenol, but they didn't want to find a way to do it overtly because at this moment, the US still hasn't entered the war. Okay. So they don't want to shift any more sentiment against Germany than is already against Germany in the US. So this gives birth to the great phenol plot.

This is really what this is called. I'm on the edge of my seat. Until the US and World War I, they were remaining fairly neutral, but they were trading with the allies to like show their support. The German ambassador wanted to try to undermine American industry secretly because they didn't want to hurt public opinion against the Germans. So what they started doing and they needed the phenol, they desperately needed it to keep barrel float and because of explosives.

So Thomas Edison was one of the biggest producers of phenol at the time because he had a giant plant that he used to make phenol to make his phonograph records because it was essential in the phonograph record process. Okay. So, he had tons of phenol in excess. So, Germany created, through the help of a German ambassador and an interior minister, they created a shell corporation in the US to buy up all of the excess phenol from Thomas Edison and ship it back to Germany.

They were buying like three tons of phenol a day and shipping it back to keep Baron business and to keep it out of the UK so that they couldn't use it for explosives. So this was all this secret plot that was orchestrated that was was only uncovered, and this is true because a briefcase with the details of the plot that was being carried around by this interior minister who was helping with this plot, he left it, he left his briefcase somewhere, forgot it, and a secret service agent

who was suspicious of him and was trailing him, got the briefcase, cracked it open, found all of this information about the great phenol plot The whole thing got published in an anti-German newspaper at the time at a newspaper in the US that was pushing against Germany and the war And even though none of this was illegal, it was really unpopular Right, so obviously as a result this got picked up by the big media as a result Edison says, you know what? I don't think this looks good for me. I'm gonna stop selling you phenol and he starts giving his phenol to the US military To use as explosives and then the US and the war when you think Thomas Edison can't suck anymore

He goes and sucks more Explosives to the German what out but killed puppies. That guy sucks so bad. So as, as part of it, don't be giving me started on Thomas Edison. Well, more will happen with the patent in the trademark on aspirin. The Treaty of Versailles actually included a provision that bear had to give up the trademark on aspirin,

actually as well as heroin. Aspirin and heroin were both released as a result as one small provision in the Treaty of Versailles. And that same year, Aspirin became available over the counter, and once it was available over the counter, everybody was buying it. When you didn't have to get it from your doctor, you already knew it worked, and with the end of the war,

and phenol becoming more available, and more aspirin, and now everybody's making it, everybody's taking it. The Spanish flu epidemic of 1918 really increased sales of aspirin because people were sick, they felt terrible. Unfortunately, a lot of people were dying, you didn't really know what to do about it. So you give them aspirin, and at least it made people feel better, lowered their fever, it helped with the aches and pains, and it was seen as kind of a miracle drug, even though it wasn't actually curing the flu.

And this combined with the markets being flooded with copycat generic brands at this time and variations on the name aspirin really spread it to you. So like in Australia, there was Aspro, which was huge. Aspro. Aspro. Aspro, and sold everywhere. And then there were just formulations in the US. They were called things like Burton's aspirin or Moloise aspirin, which were just

aspirin. There was Cal aspirin, there was St. Joseph aspirin, there were things like Caffesprin, which is caffeine and aspirin. Oh, that sounds effective though. Anacin, a lot of people have heard of anacin. Anacin's aspirin earlier. That was caffeine and aspirin. There were actually many, many other medications that came out under the name anacin eventually,

but initially it was caffeine and aspirin. That was a hugely popular one. Alchicelcer was initially aspirin and sodium bicarbonate. Okay, it's not anymore, right? There's other alchicelcer. It's the same thing. Alchicelcer has different products under alchicelcer. Same thing with Anasin. Anasin was just aspirin and caffeine, and then it grew to a lot of other things. Accentren's aspirin and caffeine too, right? Yeah. Although I think Accadren has other formulation, like there's other, you know how like Tylenol

has a million different products, I think it's same idea. But yes, yes. Now, all of this created like this aspirin fervor fever. Fervor. Fever too, it's a joke, because aspirin is fever. It's the anti-paradocate. I love it, okay, see you later. It's a joke, because that's what I'm in the fever. I love it. I love it. Anyway.

Anyway, and the only thing that dampened it in the 50s and the 60s, a couple of drugs came on the market. First of all, acetaminophen, which you probably know as Tylenol, was introduced and then shortly thereafter, ibuprofen was introduced. And both of these cut into aspirin sales majorly because some people found them to work better and for a variety of reasons, sometimes they might have been safer, especially Tylenol for various patients. The other thing that really put a damper on aspirin sales was Rysendrum. Rysendrum, did you ever hear don't take aspirin if you have chicken pox? Have you ever heard that't take aspirin if you have chickenpox?

Have you ever heard that? A lot of people may have kind of, that they knew that, but they didn't know why they knew that. In the 80s, this rare complication was found in children who were given aspirin while they were recovering from certain viral illnesses. Chickenpox is the one that gets the most press, but really it was just any kind of viral illness. They had a fever, they felt bad, they were given an aspirin, and they developed this inflammation of the brain, inflammation of the liver, very serious illness that sometimes could have been fatal.

Just a small number of children, but enough that they're good as concerned why is there this reaction in kids who get aspirin with certain viruses? We don't know, but the point was Don't give aspirin to kids. Huh was what grew out of this concern It's a period or kids are chicken boxes. Don't give aspirin to kids grew out of this Okay, unless for a very specific reason your doctor has told you to give your kid aspirin. Don't give your kid aspirin Okay, there's just a good rule of thumb in 1953

Dr. Lawrence Craven noticed that, and he was like a primary care doctor. Maybe after a horror movie villain. Maybe it was Dr. Lawrence Craven. He noticed something more useful. He's full my eye. And actually, he's kind of creepy hell. This plays out, but it's very useful. He noticed that patients in his practice who chewed Aspergum, which is a gum that has aspirin in it.

If you can imagine that existed, a gum with aspirin. So people who chewed Aspergum, which had about 227 milligrams of aspirin, which should put in like context, like a baby aspirin has 81 milligrams, little little baby aspirins, and then like the big aspirins have 325, so like a decent amount of aspirin is in there. So 227 milligrams of aspirin, that patient to chew this, blood a lot more after they got their tonsils out than patients who didn't. This was the first.

You dropped a lot of delicious blood. This led to a lot of studies being done on why does aspirin maybe thin your blood and they found that it was anti-therombotic meaning maybe prevented clotting. And from this came studies that showed aspirin could reduce your risk of heart attack or stroke. Which is the biggest breakthrough for aspirin and why it's still even though I might tell you not to take it for a headache, it still is one of the most recommended medications for patients and probably most important for certain patients to take. So even now there are about, there are between 700 and 1000 studies done on aspirin every

year to try to figure out all the things it can do. I remember seeing ads like you should take one of these if you have a heart attack and then you like nice try guys. No, you should. This is a headache pill. It's the first thing we do. If someone comes in and we think they're having a heart attack or stroke, we give them an aspirin. Aspirgown, by the way, I just did a quick search. It wasn't to continue until 2000. It's incredible. I think having it, I had it when I was really. Yeah.

See, I will say, I think it's more well known now that generally we don't give kids aspirin. Yeah. Like I said, unless there's a very specific reason that your kid has some condition that we have said, take an aspirin. Generally do not give children aspirin period. Under 19, I think is the recommendation. Yeah, it's a lot of serious stuff. So it is used in the prevention of heart attack and stroke.

It does work for pain and fever and those kinds of things, but because it is this blood thinner because it does this other thing, it may not always be the best choice for that. A acetaminophen does not do that. So for some patients, it may be safer if you're on certain medications or if you have other conditions. If you're already on kind of blood thinners and that kind of thing, aspirin could be very

dangerous for you. It can cause things like bleeding ulcers as can things like ibuprofen. So if you have a tendency for bleeding or that kind of thing, again, there's a lot of reasons why you might not just want wanna willingly take an aspirin. So, like I say, with everything you should talk to your doctor. But they've even found some studies that have correlated aspirin use with reduction in cancer risk. I can't say that it prevents cancer yet,

but they've found some studies that are intriguing. So aspirin does do a lot of things. One thing I wanna tell you not to do is please don't make a paste out of it and put it on your body. That's a thing. That is a thing that we see periodically. I think it's like an old folk remedy and you crush up aspirin and kind of turn it into a paste and put it wherever you're hurting or like if you have a fever or something,

they'll just put it on like the chest area. That seems like a lot of. Yeah, it's bad. You'll absorb that. You do absorb that. Please don't do that. That's just something generally speaking. We we always recommend against.

So just just to be aware, like there are still agiceltors out there. If you've heard of goody powder, yeah, yeah, people around here love to take goody powder for headaches that has aspirin in it. Think about that. It's the same thing as BC powder. There's a lot of those things.

I've mentioned like Buffex and Bufferin. And I mean, there at like we've talked about the gum that isn't around anymore, thank goodness. But there are tons of different meds out there that contain aspirin that you may not be aware of. So I would be very careful in general with over-the-counter pain relievers, especially if you have a lot of complicated medical conditions or if you are on a lot of other medications or just, you know, it never hurts. Ask your

doctor. Hey, which of these is probably the best thing for me to take if I have a headache or if I'm hurting or whatever? It's probably not aspirin. Probably not. Probably not. Folks, that's going to do it for us this week. Thank you so much for hanging out with us. Hey, this is not really related. Anything we're doing, but we've. It's been really terrible to see the devastation in Puerto Rico. And the area over the past couple weeks.

If there's something that if you feel so compelled to help, uh, you can do like us and go follow the lead of our friend Linman, well Miranda, who is pointing people towards Hispanic Federation.org for a size donate. So, uh, if you, if you have a few bucks to spare, it's a very worthy cause and we would highly recommend it. So go do that if you are so inclined. Thanks you to the taxpayers for the use of their own medicines is the enjoy and outro of our program. It makes sense because our show is about medicine. Think about it. You just got it in you first time. That's okay.

Have it's everybody. And thank you to the Maximum Fund Network. Oh yeah, they've got a lot of great podcasts. You should go enjoy right now. And thanks to you for listening. We really appreciate your time here with us, so we hope you've enjoyed yourself in order a little something,

but that is all the time that we have for this week. So until next week, my name is Justin McElroy. I'm Sydney McElroy. And as always, don't drill a hole in your head. Alright! Maximumfund.org Comedy and Culture, Artistone, Listener Supported. There is a new series of Star Trek coming out and maximum fun.org has submitted to our blackmail and agreed to

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