14
www.thevillagenews.co.za
15 July 2020
MY ENVIRONMENT
Aspirin – nature’s wonder drug One low-dose aspirin a day can cut the risk of heart attacks and strokes. It prevents blood clots by stopping platelets from clumping together. It is reported to also reduce the incidence of colon cancer, prostate cancer and breast cancer. It may protect against other cancers too. All diabetics are recommended to take a low-dose aspirin daily to reduce the effects of the condition on the blood vessels. The drug also reduces mental decline in people with some types of dementia.
By Dr Anina Lee
A
spirin has variously been described as “the most remarkable drug the world has ever seen”, “one of the astonishing inventions in history”, and “one of the most endurably successful commercial products of all time”.
Does it have side effects? Yes. About 6% of people suffer stomach upsets, nausea and vomiting. In some, it irritates the stomach lining causing bleeding, which can lead to ulcers.
It is one of nature’s great gifts to mankind.
later that the substance was made illegal.
How was Aspirin discovered? It all began with a willow tree. The ancients on several continents had discovered that the willow's bark reduced pain and fevers when chewed or infused in a drink. Hippocrates, he of the oath, recorded its effect, and the bark continued to be used without greatly exciting the apothecaries until the vicar of Chipping Norton, Oxfordshire, rediscovered it in texts in 1763.
Luckily for Bayer, Hoffman and Eichengrün had pressed on with their work. It was Eichengrün who first tried the drug on himself and then arranged secret clinical trials in Berlin to demonstrate its efficacy. Eichengrun also coined the name of the new drug. Since salicylic acid could also be obtained from the meadowsweet plant, Spiraea, the name was put at the heart of the new brand name. ‘A’ was added at the beginning for ‘acetylation’, and ‘in’ was tacked on to the end for easier pronunciation.
His parishioners were much troubled with ague (fevers), so he prepared a concoction, fed it to his trusting flock, and was able to present the happy results to the Royal Society. No one, however, knew why willow bark worked. It was only in 1853 that the French chemist Charles Gerhardt identified and synthesised salicylic acid – the active ingredient of willow bark. In 1897 Arthur Eichengrün, a chemist employed by the Bayer company in Germany, gave his younger colleague Felix Hoffman the task of finding a version of salicylic acid that did not have the unpleasant side effects of nausea and gastric pain.
The two chemists patented their drug, sent it out for trials, and this time persuaded Dreser to take it to market. In 1899, Bayer announced the arrival of Aspirin by sending letters and literature to 30 000 doctors in Europe in the drug industry's first mass mail-out. (Incidentally, from 1934 Eichengrün was not recognised by Bayer for his role in the Aspirin story because of his Jewish origin. Instead his laboratory was trashed and he was sent to Auschwitz.)
What Hoffman did was synthesise acetyl-salicylic acid. His boss, Heinrich Dreser, was not impressed. "Not good for the stomach," he said, and put his faith instead in another drug the company was developing. This was diacetyl-morphine. After the workers upon whom it had been tested declared it made them feel "heroic", he registered it under the trademark Heroin – and you would need a fix of the stuff to believe what came next.
Aspirin was also partly responsible for the rise of Rasputin. Tsar Nicholas II's son Alexis was taking it, and Rasputin, appalled at a Western branded medicine being used at the court of St Petersburg, ordered this stopped. He wanted more mystical remedies applied. The effect was instant. The boy was a haemophiliac, and aspirin's then-unknown blood-thinning properties were doing him no good at all. Rasputin's reputation soared as the tsarevich's bleeding improved.
Heroin was marketed by Bayer as a cough soother, especially for babies, and it was only between 1904 and 1907 that serious doubts about it were raised. By then, many morphine devotees were hooked, the less well-off among them funding their habit by selling scrap metal – hence "junkies". It was not until two decades
What does Aspirin do? Why is it called a wonder drug? The first universally available painkiller is still more widely used than any other over-the-counter analgesic. Nearly 50 000 tons of acetylsalicylic acid, its active ingredient, are produced every year – more than 100 billion tablets.
How does aspirin work? Aspirin works by stopping prostaglandins being made. Prostaglandins are hormones. But unlike most hormones, which are produced by glands and transported in the bloodstream to act on distant areas of the body, the prostaglandins are produced at the site where they are needed for dealing with injury and illness. They cause inflammation, pain and fever as part of the healing process. For example, when a blood vessel is injured, a prostaglandin called thromboxane stimulates the formation of a blood clot to try to heal the damage; it also causes the muscle in the blood vessel wall to contract (causing the blood vessel to narrow) to try to prevent blood loss. All good. Another prostaglandin called prostacyclin has the opposite effect to thromboxane, reducing blood clotting and removing any clots that are no longer needed; it also causes the muscle in the blood vessel wall to relax, so that the vessel dilates. This is a good thing when the body needs to respond to an unwanted clot in a blood vessel. However, this natural response by the body can sometimes lead to excess production of prostaglandins, causing unwanted inflammation. This means that anti-inflammatory drugs like Aspirin, which can block prostaglandin production, can be used to treat conditions such as fever, swelling, pain and arthritis. Since Aspirin blocks the production of thromboxane it can be used to prevent unwanted blood clotting in patients with heart disease. Micro-thrombosis and Covid-19 Covid-19 appears to cause tiny blood clots that can block small blood vessels in the lungs. These ‘micro’ blood clots prevent blood from taking up oxygen from the lungs. This may be a key reason why patients with Covid-19 often
have very low oxygen levels, despite ventilation. Blood clots appear to be associated with a higher risk of dying from Covid-19. Patients with pre-existing conditions that affect blood vessels such as diabetes, hypertension and obesity are known to be more vulnerable to Covid-19. Clinical trials are presently investigating whether anti-clotting medications could be life savers for seriously ill Covid-19 patients. Note that there is no evidence that Aspirin can prevent Covid-19 infection. Aspirin, the world’s most widely-used drug, still going strong after hundreds of years.
WCC Zoom Talk The 4th presentation in WCC’s series of Zoom chats on inspirational nature topics takes place on:
Thursday 16 July at 18:00 Alex van den Heever introduces us to the ancient art of wildlife tracking and explains how the Tracker Academy is creating employment and ecotourism opportunities in rural South Africa. The link to register for the whole zoom series is: https://us02web.zoom.us/webinar/register/9615926524999/WN_2Aiy4OMwRPS1I9iioP__WQ
