Aspirins - I Just Heard an Ad for Bayer Aspirin, Would you Expect a Licensed Real Doctor to Know How Aspirin Worked?

I Just Heard an Ad for Bayer Aspirin, Would you Expect a Licensed Real Doctor to Know How Aspirin Worked?

In the Ad, a Woman Says this: "I was In a Grocery Store, With my Daughter, When I had a Heart Attack. I Took an Aspirin Out of my Purse (Brand Not Specified), and Chewed it. The Doctor Said it Saved my Life", He/she Cannot Know. It's Unlikely that New Clots Were Being Formed. Thanks Douglas D, What a Shock. ~Lindy~, it doesn't "Thin the Blood". jess u, Apparently Not, I Saw this Ad Many Times for Many Years. Thanks Diane A, Yeah, I Know, M.O.N.A. Diane A Cytokines? What Cytokines, Name One. Az R, ASA has No Effect On Clots Already Formed. brewers07, I am a Real Doctor, an MD, TXA2 Dumbass, Not a Protein, Therefore Not a Cytokine. Troy, Again, Not a preformed Clot. Dawson, Not In Detail for Everything, but the Basics for Most Things. Thanks SAMI. Thanks SAMI. I Just Saw this Ad Again (MSNBC). I Saw this Ad Again, this time the Brand of the ASA In the Purse is Specified (Bayer). Furthermore, it is Cited as The Reason for Saving her Life, Once Again, the Real Doctor cannot Know, Much Less Say it was Bayer. So Much for this Being an Actual Incident (I Never Thought it was). ladyluck Blind Faith? How Nice.

Public Comments

Well a licensed physician that prescribes meds should know about aspirin and it's effects. It is widely known to thin the blood, but I am not sure how fast that would work to save someone from a heart attack.
The ad seems to have a misleading message.
Aspirin thins the blood, it helps I'm sure and if a doctor doesn't know about how aspirin works...hes not licensed or needs a new one! However, it is a commercial so they pump it full of bs & wonderfully disgusting happy moments. Sell SELL SELL!! They do whatever it takes.
that is false advertising, and you can count the seconds untill the ad gets pulled from the tv. Asprin works to thin the blood but it is not specific (ie it cannot find a clot and break it down) A heart attack is also not related to a clot in the system (that would be an anurism). It is the muscular ceasing of the heart tissues which can cause clots, but is not caused by clots. And as if anyone in the midst of a heart attack would have the prescence of mind (of the physical ablity) to take an asprin. Dangerous advertising, aimed at helpless people, to cause sales through fear. Stupid and bad.
Aspirin does not thin the blood, it causes platelets to not clump & form clots and every "Real" doctor knows this. We give an aspirin to everyone who presents to the ER with chest pain. Because...you do not want clumps of platelets sticking to narrowed, damaged heart vasculature--these clumps can totally occlude the vessel creating a massive heart attack. Platelets activate almost immediately when the clotting cascade gets activated in damaged endothelium via the cytokines that are released.
I know aspirin does not thin the blood per say but taking it helps to prevent clots. They show that commercial all the time and it is very misleading. My MIL took an aspirin everyday for many years, then she stopped taking them. She had cancer when she stopped taking the aspirins and she told her Dr she no longer took the aspirin. She had to get transfusions of blood every couple to 3 months for bone cancer. The last time she went for her transfusion she got a blood clot and had to be hospitalized. I believe if the Dr had told her not to stop the aspirin she would not have gotten the clot. But I do not believe an aspirin will stop a heart attack as shown on TV. That is definitely false advertising.
Now. I could be wrong, I'm not a doctor, but from memory, the MoA of ASA is to block COX 1/2. In the platelets, inhibition of COX1 chokes off the production of a prostaglandin necessary for platelet aggregation into a clot. This really wouldn't do all that much for an existing clot, except, I suppose prevent enlargement. Again, could be wrong, and probably am, but isn't the contribution of a secondary clot a decently significant contributor to mortality in heart attacks? When you have one clot thrown free in the arterial system, you're more than likely to form another (I'm thinking ruptured plaque here). So. Been demonstrated if I recall to have some positive effect. But aren't the real benefits of aspirin found in daily administration and lowering the frequency/size of clots formed. Bha. It's been years since I've read up on this stuff. I can't even find my notes. Like all commercials it's dramatized, scary and loaded with impending doom and black and white statements. I hate them all. Granted, they're also trying to sell to the big chunk of the population that thinks lungs are like big hollow empty balloons, and that your colon builds up thick layers of 'toxins' that have to be purged. Edit: Thought so.
Thromboxane A smartass. It inhibits its formation by inactivating cyclooxygenase 1 permanently causing platelets not to clot. I take it that md doesn't mean medical doctor in your case..
Actually he can know, as do all real doctors. Aspirin alone reduces mortality in an acute MI by 23%. So maybe he should have said "probably" or "helped save" or something like that, but do we really need to split hairs? I'm guessing you must be a lawyer. New clots may or may not form, but clots that have started can expand. chest pain can begin even before a coronary artery is 100% occluded, so if you have an evolving clot, it is in your best interest to stop its growth immediately to preserve what little perfusion is there until PCI or Thrombolytic therapy is performed. Clots could also grow to occlude multiple arteries, expanding the size of an infarction. Bottom line, no matter what, mortality reduction is mortality reduction. Now the most important thing about aspirin is it is the one therapy anyone can initiate in chest pain, and there is little to no harm in doing so.
I would expect a licensed Dr. to know how aspirin works, or any drug for that matter, but there are certain drugs, like aspirin that do things other than their meant to and it's a mystery. Aspirin is an anti inflammatory, pain killer and fever reducer. but it has been shown to save people from dying if they take it during a heart attack and I don't think science exactly knows how, or why.
Yes, MD's know how aspirin works, and yes, it does decrease mortality. What more do you need to know? it irreversibly inhibits platelet aggregation. Now if the patient was having angina, chewed aspirin, and the clot did not progress to a total occlusion, you might say that was life-saving. If you have ever had any surgical procedure, what do they tell you to do? Stop aspirin at least a week before, along with other meds and vitamins that interfere with clotting. It is good information for the average person to have-- so they smaltz it up a bit- still useful information.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mechanism_of_action_of_aspirin
How would a doctor now anything about meds, they get their information from TV ads and Salespeople.
Doctors are taught how asprin works id expect that he/she knew what he was talking about