Is There Any Reason For Me To Take Aspirin?

Tenacity

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Mar 12, 2016
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Hi everyone, I have a question that I have been thinking about recently.

I appear to be in decent health, other than slight acne on my face, back and shoulders that has improved ever since going on a diet with Peat's work in mind, and slight social anxiety. The former may indicate that I'm not in 'perfect' health. I'm a 20 year old male, almost turning 21.

I eat a diet of mainly milk, cheese, fruit and fruit juice, potatoes and some supplementary vegetables/gelatin. I also lift weights regularly.

If I want to improve my overall wellbeing, is there any reason I should take aspirin? How often, in what dosages and with what combination of other supplements/foods (I've read vitamin K2 was a good idea). Aspirin is relatively cheap and easy to acquire where I am, so if it could benefit me in anyway it'd seem silly not to indulge. :joyful:

Thanks everyone!
 

milk_lover

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Aspirin has many health benefits especially against cancer. I'll list what I can remember.

  • It can block tryptophan from food, thus it can reduce serotonin and histamine (good to take with muscle meat or food that gives you allergy symptoms)
  • It can antagonize estrogen
  • It can reduce cortisol (it can be a good sleep-aid)
  • It can prevent the release of fatty acids in the blood and thus it is a good option to treat type 2 diabetes/insulin resistance also it can protect against the by-products of PUFA like prostaglandin
  • It can be a natural hair moisturizer
There are much more benefits. Type "Aspirin" in the search bar or search on Ray Peat's website. He has talked so much about aspirin. One article is this: Aspirin, brain, and cancer.

If you use carrot salad or fiber daily and take aspirin, you might need to take vitamin K2. Some people get bleeding from it, I don't, so vitamin K2 could help with that. Better take it with food to avoid gut problems. Coffee, gelatin/glycine, baking soda, etc., can be taken with it to reduce stomach problems.
 
OP
Tenacity

Tenacity

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Thanks milk_lover! Those things all look very promising.

I tend to not like to go too heavy on supplements, preferring to rely on food. Would there be any point in taking aspirin once a week to start with?
 

Tarmander

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Uhh, cause it's badass? Nah seriously, just do a search you'll find all kinds of great stuff. Doing a baby aspirin here or there feels awesome and is basically risk free
 

milk_lover

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Thanks milk_lover! Those things all look very promising.

I tend to not like to go too heavy on supplements, preferring to rely on food. Would there be any point in taking aspirin once a week to start with?
Actually that's what Peat does, i.e., once a week, and I believe haidut does the same. Haidut mentioned in a podcast that's enough to reduce cancer risks.
 
OP
Tenacity

Tenacity

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Great. I'll begin experimenting then. :D

Thanks everyone.
 

pepsi

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Be careful if you take it everyday. I started doing that cause of all the good things Ive heard and a few days ago I woke up with a blood shot eye. I looked it up on the internet and its called a subconjunctival hemorrhage and one of the causes sure enough is aspirin. Its ugly and embarrassing. Luckily I was off from school and work and its almost gone now.

I should have heeded the warning when I saw some blood when I would blow my nose. Some days I would take 2 aspirin but thought nothing of it, thats only like 650 mg and Ive heard of people taking 6 grams/day. But taking one a week as someone said sounds good and after a break I may do that instead.
 

tara

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If you are thinking of doing it daily for general health, rather than short term for a specific issue, I'd think 100-300 might be a suitable amount. I think Peat has mentioned that 200-300mg/day for general health. The baby aspirin (<100mg) evidently are enough to have statistical measurable positive effect.
If you can avoid bothersome excipients, so much the better.
And stop if you notice any downsides that aren't resolved with a bit of vit-K.
 

tyw

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As is usually the case with me, time for some Philosophy :oldman:

The first questions to ask regarding any exogenous substance is:

(1) What are the potential downsides of this compound? And at what dose do these harmful effects commonly occur?

and therefore (1a) what is the dose should I start experimenting with?​

(2) What is the job to be done by this compound?

-----
If you cannot answer question (1), then understand that you are staring down the face of uncertainty :bigtears:, and be prepared to accept the consequences.

Emphasis on "Uncertainty". Taking a substance with inadequate prior testing is not "Risk", it is fundamental "I don't know what could happen" Uncertainty. You can calculate Risk -- playing poker is a game of managed risk based on likely probabilities. You cannot calculate Uncertainty.​

As far as Aspirin goes, there is so much work spanning multiple generations to indicate that pure Aspirin is very safe. It is also very cheap to obtain.

I will agree that any of the doses stated above are very safe doses to take. Even if there are no benefits, there is no harm either.

----

Then we get to question (2), and to this, there are many different compounds that do very different things, and we must De-complect :cat: all their independent effects, and determine if they solve the problem that we want to solve.

In this case, we run into a generic "want to be healthier" claim. If we subscribe to Peat principles, that basically means "improve Metabolic efficiency" (more ECT activity, more CO2, less ROS).

Next, I will quote almost verbatim a private conversation I had with a friend of mine. (And yes, you will see criticism of the Peat community as well. As I like to say, "I hate on everyone equally, but I don't hate anyone :kiss")

Friend: peat destroying resveratrol on herb doctors

Me:

Again, we must de-complect

There are 2 things about resveratrol:
(a) Estrogenic
(b) SIRT1 enhancing

People in support of it ignore (a) and think (b) is good.

I would approach an argument differently depending on the general stance of the listeners.

I could start with, "You say resveratrol has no downsides, but here is a clear downside ... Do you think the SIRT1 raising 'benefits' are worth this downside"

ie: Turn the discussion into a cost vs benefit analysis.

Another way is to turn it into a "What is the benefit of SIRT1?" type question. In a way, this is questioning the person as "You keep saying SIRT1 is 'good', but do you even know what it does?"

In case my position is unclear, I am of the opinion that it is one of those stress-regulatory enzymes.

It should have high activity at times, and low activity at other times.

Which is also why I don't fully agree with the Peat methodology of always suppressing SIRT1. The thing about the Peat folk, is that they often complect "suppression of SIRT1" with "Improved NAD+ pool".

Niacinamide seems to suppress SIRT as A SIDE EFFECT of enhancing NAD+ pool.

ie: if a compound only suppresses SIRT1, but does not affect NAD+ pool, then it is useless, or even harmful. This is resveratrol's effect.

"Stress" here is basically defined by "depletion of NAD+" and lack of resources to support further metabolism.

Now, the question in a clinical context becomes far more nuanced.

I agree with your slides [referring to a presentation he's doing], that you can either Starve cancer, or Overwhelm it.

In that sense, "resveratrol works" .... with the BIG caveat that the only data we have of cancer cell apoptosis triggered by resveratrol are in vitro studies.

This is big caveat because in vivo studies of resveratrol show it to be even more estrogenic than in vitro

It is a high risk proposition IMO.

Niacinamide and Aspirin on the other hand, are low risk ..... Biggest risk with Nacinamide + Aspirin is probably some fat gain by taking it at the wrong times. [TYW note: see post -- People With The Lowest Overall Mortality Are Overweight

I hesitate to draw analogies (I HATE using NARRATIVE for Objective science) .... but I will use one anyway

Niacinamide + Aspirin are like "training wheels for your metabolism".

"Teaching your cells to be law-abiding metabolic citizens again".

They are exactly like training wheels, in that their effects are metabolic, and transient -- you can take off your training wheels any time and "test if you are back up to speed".

There are no long term consequences; the moment you remove the metabolic addition, their effect stops working.

This means that you have to constantly take them for benefit, but it also means that you can remove them any time, and have any possible negatives disappear very quickly.

Compare that to Resveratrol, which creates a different sort of dependency, which does not disappear immediately once the compound is removed from a supplementation protocol.

These is not "training wheels" o_O it is transforming your bicycle into a tricycle :sorry:

In the sense of "now you need extra machinery from the 'low carb' metabolism to function"

Again, be wary of when the analogy breaks down :banghead: (I HATE NARRATIVES)

And anyone who claims that 'low carb metabolism' is not more complex is fooling themselves.

The body needs to do all sorts of extra stuff ... ramp up baseline fat oxidation, tune insulin signalling to be "just right" (fat stimulates insulin, protein definitely does), breakdown different kinds of fatty acids, have more mobilisation from tissue stores, switch up the hormones to spare the brain some glucose, make ketones if brain doesn't get that glucose, etc .....

It is basically a state of "use regular mixed-fuel metabolism where possible, any when not possible, let's do some extra work to patch up the places that need glucose" We can even go into the low-level mechanics of fatty acid metabolism to show how it is "more work".

TYW sees that as "more places for screw-ups to occur".

TL;DR --
Take some aspirin. Quit if there are negative side effects :fire:


....
 

LifeMirage

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Joined
Nov 12, 2015
Messages
5
Aspirin has many health benefits especially against cancer. I'll list what I can remember.

  • It can block tryptophan from food, thus it can reduce serotonin and histamine (good to take with muscle meat or food that gives you allergy symptoms)
  • It can antagonize estrogen
  • It can reduce cortisol (it can be a good sleep-aid)
  • It can prevent the release of fatty acids in the blood and thus it is a good option to treat type 2 diabetes/insulin resistance also it can protect against the by-products of PUFA like prostaglandin
  • It can be a natural hair moisturizer
There are much more benefits. Type "Aspirin" in the search bar or search on Ray Peat's website. He has talked so much about aspirin. One article is this: Aspirin, brain, and cancer.

If you use carrot salad or fiber daily and take aspirin, you might need to take vitamin K2. Some people get bleeding from it, I don't, so vitamin K2 could help with that. Better take it with food to avoid gut problems. Coffee, gelatin/glycine, baking soda, etc., can be taken with it to reduce stomach problems.

k1 for aspirin, k2 for vitamin d.
 

ddjd

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Joined
Jul 13, 2014
Messages
6,673
From haidut:

For the people thinking aspirin would never disappear from the shelves, keep in mind that the company doing the wildly successful human trial with 300mg biotin for MS petitioned the FDA to regulate biotin as a drug and the FDA agreed. So, once 300mg biotin becomes approved, even the 10mg maximum legal dose available now OTC in USA will disappear as per the request of that drug company.
Finally, if anybody has any doubts that aspirin can fight cancer see below article on financial industry "concern" that the effectiveness of aspirin against cancer will put strain (read profits) on the retirement system. Just notice that people giving up smoking is actually a concern for the health and pension industry, not a boon/benefit.
Aspirin Seen Fueling $100 Billion Pensions Cost
"...Aspirin’s use fighting cancer has the potential to increase pension liabilities by as much as $100 billion by extending lifespans, a risk modeler said in a report. The pension costs for men in the U.K. could rise by 0.7 percent within 20 years if more people begin taking aspirin daily, according to a statement by Risk Management Solutions Inc. today. An increase of that magnitude across the more than $13 trillion in pension liabilities in North America and Europe would be about the same as everyone giving up smoking within a generation, the modeling firm said. Employers and governments are grappling with obligations to retirees as low bond yields make it harder to generate returns on funds set aside for the benefits. Actuaries’ assumptions about costs have been challenged as medical advances and changes in behavior help people live longer. “Aspirin was not known to be a protection against cancer,” said Andrew Coburn, a senior vice president of RMS’s LifeRisks platform and one of the report’s authors. “It’s another one that people just didn’t expect” when they forecast liabilities. Daily doses of aspirin reduce the chances of developing or dying from cancerearlier than previously thought and also prevent tumors from spreading, studies published in the Lancetmedical journal last year showed."
 

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