Saturday, June 11, 2005

First they came for my Celebrex, then they came for my Motrin

and BMJ link HERE

As a sufferer from Osteoarthritis, I have been cynical about the Vioxx controversy, and a couple weeks ago I predicted wait till they find the excess deaths from Motrin...

So now they found the excess deaths....duh...
NSAIDS like Motrin increase fluid retention and counteract the blood thinning from Aspirn.

But one of the problems is that this is not a predictive double blind study, but a population study:

The database has been validated by comparing birth rates, death rates, consultation rates, prevalence, and mortality with other data sources including the general household survey and the general practice research database

Notice what they didn't check for? Right. Pain...people don't take Motrin to prevent disease, but to treat pain (although there are studies showing taking motrin decreases bowel cancer, I don't know people who take it every day for that reason).

Reason for pain includes headaches-- associated with high blood pressure, which causes heart attacks, and associated with stress, which causes heart attacks, and associated with migraines, which means your blood vessels tend to overreact and constrict, which can also cause heart attacks.

Pain also might be from arthritis. Rheumatoid diseases have all sorts of effects on the body. But what about those of us with osteoarthritis? Osteoarthritis is associated with previous injuries or heavy labour..many factors might increase injuries: druggies and alcoholics get a lot of injuries, which might increase cholesterol, or in the case of Crank/meth/cocaine might actually cause heart attacks. Then you have activity. People who work in physical labour might have more heart attacks--perhaps due to labour, perhaps due to sociological factors. Then there is the question: generalized osteoarthritis is because the cartilege is different...could the gene causing this also affect the heart attack rate?

Developing....

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