by Dr. Joseph Mercola, Mercola:
STORY AT-A-GLANCE
- There was a massive discrediting propaganda campaign hurled at aspirin by Big Pharma fifty years ago when it came out with expensive and dangerous non-steroidal anti-inflammatories (NSAIDs)
- Aspirin is a staple medicine that is frequently recommended as a remedy to control inflammation and prevent blood clots. It could have helped limit the pandemic death toll, had it not been downplayed and ignored
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- According to research published in April 2021, aspirin reduced COVID-19 patients’ need for mechanical ventilation by 44%, ICU admission by 43% and mortality by 47%
- Proteolytic enzymes like lumbrokinase, serrapeptase and nattokinase are safer and perhaps even superior choices to aspirin for its anticlot properties. These enzymes, when taken on an empty stomach, act as natural anticoagulants by breaking down fibrin
- Proteolytic enzymes may also be helpful for long-COVID. Researchers have found that people who die from COVID have extensive lung damage caused by persistent virus-infected cells that cause scar formation. Proteolytic enzymes can help dissolve this scar tissue, as fibrin is a primary component
Aspirin (acetylsalicylic acid) was introduced in 1899 as an alternative to sodium salicylate,1 a pain reliever and anti-inflammatory known for its unpleasant side effects such as stomach cramps, heartburn, nausea and vomiting. It’s been a staple medicine in most households ever since and is frequently recommended as a remedy to control inflammation and prevent blood clots that can lead to stroke and heart attack.
Aspirin also has other health benefits. It helps increase the oxidation of glucose as fuel for your body while inhibiting the release of fatty acids from your fat cells, specifically linoleic acid (LA), an omega-6 fat which I suspect is a primary driver of chronic disease.
This is important because nearly everyone in the U.S. has excessive LA in their tissues, as it takes seven years of a low LA diet to get it down to healthy levels. So, the last thing you want to do is increase the release of LA into your body from fat stores. It is far better to release LA slowly and allow your liver to process it. It is water soluble, so you can urinate it out without it being metabolized into inflammatory prostaglandins.
Importantly, aspirin will also lower your baseline cortisol — indirectly by lowering inflammation, and directly by inhibiting the enzyme 11-beta-hydroxysteroid dehydrogenase Type 1. This enzyme synthesizes active cortisol from the inactive precursor cortisone.
Aspirin lowers the production of stressed induced aldosterone, which can help to lower blood pressure. Aspirin increases your levels of carbon dioxide and progesterone while inhibiting the major inflammatory pathway, NF kappa-B, which will help your body naturally increase the synthesis of two powerfully important hormones that your body needs, testosterone and progesterone.
Aspirin also uncouples mitochondria. Uncoupling of mitochondrial oxidative metabolism from ATP production can help to increase your metabolic rate and help you lose weight. Dinitrophenol (DNP) is a drug that, like aspirin, uncouples mitochondrial metabolism and produces incredible weight loss. Sadly, it has a very low therapeutic index, so its effective dose is close to its toxic dose and is widely considered too dangerous for clinical use and is no longer available in the U.S.
Aspirin Reduced COVID-Related Hospital Deaths by 47%
Aspirin could also have helped limit the pandemic death toll, had it not been downplayed and overlooked. Many news outlets and COVID-specific websites warned against the use of aspirin for COVID infection, saying it could cause serious bleeding.
While bleeding is a potential side effect, aspirin is no riskier than other anticoagulants, such as heparin,2,3,4 which was recommended by the National Institutes of Health.5
According to research6 published in April 2021, aspirin significantly reduced COVID-19 patients’ need for mechanical ventilation, ICU admission and subsequent mortality. The retrospective, observational cohort study included patients admitted for COVID infection at multiple hospitals across the U.S. between March and July 2020. As reported by General Surgery News:7
“The study’s principal investigator, Jonathan Chow, MD, an assistant professor of anesthesiology and critical care medicine at George Washington University, in Washington, D.C., said:
‘At the beginning of the pandemic, in March and April of 2020, my colleagues and I observed that all these COVID patients in the intensive care unit began to develop excess clot formation and complications related to blood clots and microclot formation throughout the body.’
Numerous autopsy studies from last spring showed these patients had activation of platelets throughout the body and an excessive number of precursors to platelets, according to Dr. Chow.
‘That got us thinking, ‘Why don’t we start using an antiplatelet medication, such as aspirin, to treat these patients?’ he said. ‘Aspirin has been studied extensively in cardiovascular disease to prevent clot formation, and it is widely available and inexpensive.’”
Chow and his team reviewed the charts of 412 patients, 23.7% of whom had either received aspirin within 24 hours of admission, or had taken aspirin for at least seven days prior to admission, and 76.3% who did not.
After adjusting for several confounding variables, including comorbidities, aspirin was independently associated with a:
- 44% decreased risk for mechanical ventilation
- 43% reduced risk for ICU admission
- 47% decrease in hospital mortality
Based on this research, it appears COVID-19-related hospital deaths could have been cut nearly in half, had aspirin been routinely used. Chow commented on the results:8
“The results of the study do not really surprise us because we know that COVID causes excess clot formation and we know that aspirin is a very potent blood thinner. So, when you have a disease that causes clots and a medication that thins your blood, that may lead to the protective effects that we found.”
Aberrant Coagulation in Severe Influenza Pneumonia
As in COVID-19, pneumonia caused by influenza also involves microclotting in the lungs. According to research published in 2016, aberrant coagulation is what causes a hyperinflammatory response in severe influenza pneumonia:9
“Dysfunctional coagulation is a common complication in pathogenic influenza, manifested by lung endothelial activation, vascular leak, disseminated intravascular coagulation and pulmonary microembolism.
Importantly, emerging evidence shows that an uncontrolled coagulation system, including both the cellular (endothelial cells and platelets) and protein (coagulation factors, anticoagulants and fibrinolysis proteases) components, contributes to the pathogenesis of influenza by augmenting viral replication and immune pathogenesis.”
This paper also highlighted the benefits of aspirin, noting it:10
- Protects mice from lethal influenza virus infection
- Acts as an anti-influenza virus agent in vitro by inhibiting pro-inflammatory NF-κB activity
- Improves influenza outcomes
- Potentially inhibits platelet activation
Fibrinolytics May Be the Key
According to the 2016 paper above, “Fibrinolysis is involved in both lung inflammation and the influenza A virus life cycle.” Fibrinolysis is a process that prevents blood clots from forming and growing. This is part of your body’s normal processes, but sometimes the clotting becomes too excessive, requiring a fibrinolytic to help break down the clots that have already formed.
Fibrin is the material that blood clots are made of, and while aspirin can help break them down, I believe proteolytic enzymes like lumbrokinase, serrapeptase and nattokinase are superior choices.
These enzymes, when taken on an empty stomach, away from food, act as natural anticoagulants by breaking down fibrin. They must be taken at least one hour before or two hours after meals containing protein, though. Otherwise, they’ll be wasted in the digestion of the protein in your food and won’t be able to activate their fibrinolytic properties.
