Tuesday, October 20, 2009

Aspirin fights heart attacks, but daily doses aren't for everyone

Meredith Natsch 10/20/09

http://www.cnn.com/2009/HEALTH/07/28/heart.aspirin/index.html

This article is centered around a story about how a man had a heart attack on a plane and survived, possibly due to taking Aspirin. A doctor on board who was trying to help only had a medical kit, so he gave the man, Ben Van Doorn, aspirin to try and help with the pain. Van Doorn later described the pain as a truck sitting on his chest. The plane took an emergency landing in Montana and raced him to the hospital. Though his heart stopped six times during the procedure, Ben Van Doorn turned out to be fine. 

The doctor that excecuted the surgery believes that there was a high likelihood that the aspirin contributed in saving his life. Van Doorn now takes 325 milligrams of aspirin a day, instead of just 81 like he did back in February. Today, about one third of the adult U.S. population take aspirin to prevent heart disease. However, most of these 50 million people do it without consulting their doctor. This is very dangerous, according to Dr. Mark Johnson, who is president of the American College of Preventive Medicine. He also adds that is isn't a universal good thing... for some people, up to 20%, it doesn't even have an affect and can negate the effects of other medications.

I think this was a great article, but it was a little long and dull. Otherwise, it was pretty easy to understand and no doubt about something universally interesting, because it relates to a lot of people. If I could modify this article just a bit, I'd make it less detailed and add some variety to what the article is about, because it goes on for most of it about one sub-topic. In general this was a great article, and worth reading.


5 comments:

  1. I liked how you talked about how this man who toke an aspirin, was changed by it as it saved his life. I liked how you verbally described Ben Van Doorn’s heart attack, which put a great mental picture in my mind. I enjoyed reading about how too much of aspirin can actually be negative on the body.
    I think you could have described the negative effects of aspirin in more detail. I also think that it was help the reader if you described what other positive effects aspirin has.
    I was really impressed in how you found an article about something related to our every day life, as everyone has taken an aspirin before.

    ReplyDelete
  2. I liked how the article chosen concerns so many people in the US, not just a select few. Also, it was very easy to imagine what had happened, and how Van Doorn could have easily died. Finally, I liked how there were sources supporting this article. However, I would have liked how aspirin helps your heart, and I would have liked to know what kind of surgery restarts someone's heart. I learned from this article that aspirin can help your heart if taken regularly.

    ReplyDelete
  3. I liked how the article interested me the second i started reading it because of the story. I liked how this article can give everyone information about Aspirin because everyone has taken an Aspirin before. Lastly, I liked how Meredith got to the point and gave us the jist on what this article is trying to tell us.
    This review could have been better if Merwadith put in more detail about what had happened to Ben Van Doorn. It also could have been better if Meradith elucidated more on whether or not to take Aspirin is more of a bad thing or more of a good thing.
    Overall, this article was very helpful because i now know that Aspirin can help your heart if taken on a regular basis.

    ReplyDelete
  4. I liked how Meredith told us how aspirin can help us prevent heart attacks with our doctors consent. I also liked how she opened with an eye catching story about Ben Van Doorn. Finally I liked how Meredith made it clear that for some people aspirin cannot help and has the potential to even hurt people.
    I think the article could have been better if Meredith went more into detail about taking too much aspirin and what would happen. I also think it would have been nice if Meredith told us what happened to Ben and what his life is like now.
    Overall this was a very good review. I learned that aspirin can help to prevent heart attacks.
    Brewster Warble

    ReplyDelete
  5. I really like reading this article because I thought it was truly amazing how an aspirin saved a man's life. Usually I take aspirin to get rid of a headache, or to lower a fever, but never would I imagine that it could help to save a man having a heart attack. I think it is interesting how more and more common medicines are now more useful then the medications that take months and years to make. I also was amazed when the article spoke about how people now take a perscribed dosage of apirin to avoid heart disease and prevent heart attacks. This was a very interesting article that I would like to research and read more about because it definitely caught my attention. I think what could have made this article better is if Meredith put more detail in telling what happened to Ben Van Doorn on the plane, because she didn't really put alot of detail into what else happened to him. However, overally this was a very educational and great article.

    ReplyDelete