Common painkillers linked to increased heart failure risk

Tuesday, November 01, 2016 by: L.J. Devon, Staff Writer
Tags: heart failure, pain management, antioxidants

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(NaturalNews) When elderly patients with joint problems start taking common painkillers such as ibuprofen and naproxen, their risk of heart failure increases. This is the finding of a UK study published in the British Medical Journal. The study investigated 10 million people with an average age of 77 from the UK, the Netherlands, Italy and Germany. Those who took non-steroidal anti-inflammatory drugs (NSAIDs) were rushed to the hospital with heart failure 19 percent more often than those who did not take the drugs. The same awful correlation was not made for those under the age of 65, but the study does point out that serious health problems are being ignored and numbed by painkillers.

Dealing with the root cause of inflammation is more important for long-term health

Regular use of NSAIDs is becoming a popular strategy to help manage pain later in life. Using these over-the-counter painkillers may take the edge off the pain, but continued use does not deal with the problems that are causing the inflammation in the first place. And old age is not the reason for the pain.

For this reason, elderly patients could benefit more from natural anti-inflammatory substances that work with the body's healing process. Over time, giving the body phyto-nutrients such as astaxanthin, curcumin and capsicum do much greater damage repair than NSAIDs. These plant based medicines go after the free radicals that are causing damage at the cellular level.

Numbing the pain is not enough, and allows heart conditions to go unnoticed, leading to heart failure. Pain within the joints and tissues is a signal to the conscious self that there is indeed a breakdown, an imbalance, or a deficiency. When NSAIDs are thrown at the problem regularly, there can only be a numbing of the real problems that the elderly patient faces. When the correct nutrients are absorbed and toxins are removed, then the root problem sending the message of pain can be repaired.

Better pain management essential for the elderly

Flu shots and other vaccines containing aluminum are pushed on the elderly as "medicine." The aluminum acts as an inflammatory adjuvant to trigger the immune system to respond to the virus material in the vaccine. The inflammation and genetic damage that aluminum is known to cause may be exacerbating pain in elderly patients and causing damage to their nervous systems.

Natural substances that repair the nervous and immune systems would be better advised for the elderly population. However, the medical system and the common patient do not understand how to use substances such as phenolic compounds that come from plants. These real life medicines possess antioxidant properties that act as therapeutic agents to counteract oxidative stress. Something as simple as Siberian ginseng (Eleutherococcus senticosus) can be included in the diet to provide greater mental and physical stamina. This root contains a powerful combination of sterols, coumarins, flavonoids and polysaccharides that lessen the effect of stress on the body, allowing one to adapt to high stress situations and manage pain more effectively.

Sources include:

BBC.com

Antioxidants-For-Health-And-Longevity.com

GlobalHealingCenter.com

NCBI.NLM.NIH.gov