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Authors: Norman Cousins
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able to throw a ball with full strength. The drugs didnât repair the torn muscle or cause the damaged tissue to heal. What they did was to mask the pain, enabling the pitcher to throw hard, further damaging the torn muscle. Little wonder that so many star athletes are cut down in their prime, more the victims of overzealous treatment of their injuries than of the injuries themselves.
The king of all painkillers, of course, is aspirin. The U.S. Food and Drug Administration permits aspirin to be sold without prescription, but the drug, contrary to popular belief, can be dangerous and, in sustained doses, potentially lethal. Aspirin is self-administered by more people than any other drug in the world. Some people are aspirin-poppers, taking ten or more a day. What they donât know is that the smallest dose can cause internal bleeding. Even more serious perhaps is the fact that aspirin is antagonistic to collagen, which has a key role in the formation of connective tissue. Since many forms of arthritis involve disintegration of the connective tissue, the steady use of aspirin can actually intensify the underlying arthritic condition.
The reason why aspirin is prescribed so widely for arthritic patients is that it has an antiinflammatory effect, apart from its pain-deadening characteristics. In recent years, however, medical researchers have suggested that the antiinflammatory value of aspirin may be offset by the harm it causes to the bodyâs vital chemistry. Doctors J. Hirsh, D. Street, J.F. Cade, and H. Amy, in the March 1973 issue of the professional journal Blood , showed that aspirin impedes the interaction between âplatelet releaseâ and connective tissue. In the Annals of Rheumatic Diseases , also in March 1973, Dr. P.N. Sperryn reported a significant blood loss in patients who were on heavy daily doses of aspirin. (It is not unusual for patients suffering from serious rheumatoid arthritis to take as many as twenty-four aspirin tablets a day.)
Again, I call attention to the article in the May 8, 1971, issue of Lancet , the English medical journal. Dr. M.A. Sahud and Dr. R.J. Cohen stated that the systematic use of aspirin by rheumatoid patients produces abnormally low plasma-ascorbic-acid levels. The authors reported that aspirin blocks the âuptake of ascorbic acid into the blood platelets.â Since vitamin C is essential in collagen formation, its depletion by aspirin would seem to run directly counter to the bodyâs need to combat connective tissue breakdown in arthritic conditions. The Lancet article concludes that, at the very least, ascorbic acid should be administered along with aspirin to counteract its harmful effects.
Aspirin is not the only pain-killing drug, of course, that is known to have dangerous side effects. Dr. Daphne A. Roe, of Cornell University, at a medical meeting in New York City in 1974, presented startling evidence of a wide range of hazards associated with sedatives and other pain suppressants. Some of these drugs seriously interfere with the ability of the body to metabolize food properly, producing malnutrition. In some instances, there is also the danger of bone-marrow depression, interfering with the ability of the body to replenish its blood supply.
Pain-killing drugs are among the greatest advances in the history of medicine. Properly used, they can be a boon in alleviating suffering and in treating disease. But their indiscriminate and promiscuous use is making psychological cripples and chronic ailers out of millions of people. The unremitting barrage of advertising for pain-killing drugs, especially over television, has set the stage for a mass anxiety neurosis. Almost from the moment children are old enough to sit upright in front of a television screen, they are being indoctrinated into the hypochondriacâs clamorous and morbid world. Little wonder so many people fear pain more than death itself.
It might be a good idea if concerned physicians
The king of all painkillers, of course, is aspirin. The U.S. Food and Drug Administration permits aspirin to be sold without prescription, but the drug, contrary to popular belief, can be dangerous and, in sustained doses, potentially lethal. Aspirin is self-administered by more people than any other drug in the world. Some people are aspirin-poppers, taking ten or more a day. What they donât know is that the smallest dose can cause internal bleeding. Even more serious perhaps is the fact that aspirin is antagonistic to collagen, which has a key role in the formation of connective tissue. Since many forms of arthritis involve disintegration of the connective tissue, the steady use of aspirin can actually intensify the underlying arthritic condition.
The reason why aspirin is prescribed so widely for arthritic patients is that it has an antiinflammatory effect, apart from its pain-deadening characteristics. In recent years, however, medical researchers have suggested that the antiinflammatory value of aspirin may be offset by the harm it causes to the bodyâs vital chemistry. Doctors J. Hirsh, D. Street, J.F. Cade, and H. Amy, in the March 1973 issue of the professional journal Blood , showed that aspirin impedes the interaction between âplatelet releaseâ and connective tissue. In the Annals of Rheumatic Diseases , also in March 1973, Dr. P.N. Sperryn reported a significant blood loss in patients who were on heavy daily doses of aspirin. (It is not unusual for patients suffering from serious rheumatoid arthritis to take as many as twenty-four aspirin tablets a day.)
Again, I call attention to the article in the May 8, 1971, issue of Lancet , the English medical journal. Dr. M.A. Sahud and Dr. R.J. Cohen stated that the systematic use of aspirin by rheumatoid patients produces abnormally low plasma-ascorbic-acid levels. The authors reported that aspirin blocks the âuptake of ascorbic acid into the blood platelets.â Since vitamin C is essential in collagen formation, its depletion by aspirin would seem to run directly counter to the bodyâs need to combat connective tissue breakdown in arthritic conditions. The Lancet article concludes that, at the very least, ascorbic acid should be administered along with aspirin to counteract its harmful effects.
Aspirin is not the only pain-killing drug, of course, that is known to have dangerous side effects. Dr. Daphne A. Roe, of Cornell University, at a medical meeting in New York City in 1974, presented startling evidence of a wide range of hazards associated with sedatives and other pain suppressants. Some of these drugs seriously interfere with the ability of the body to metabolize food properly, producing malnutrition. In some instances, there is also the danger of bone-marrow depression, interfering with the ability of the body to replenish its blood supply.
Pain-killing drugs are among the greatest advances in the history of medicine. Properly used, they can be a boon in alleviating suffering and in treating disease. But their indiscriminate and promiscuous use is making psychological cripples and chronic ailers out of millions of people. The unremitting barrage of advertising for pain-killing drugs, especially over television, has set the stage for a mass anxiety neurosis. Almost from the moment children are old enough to sit upright in front of a television screen, they are being indoctrinated into the hypochondriacâs clamorous and morbid world. Little wonder so many people fear pain more than death itself.
It might be a good idea if concerned physicians
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