The Whole Truth About Anti-Inflammatory Medication: Link to Strokes and Disease

William Ferril, M.D.

Copyright 2019

The whole truth about anti-inflammatory medications is quite the ugly emerging story. It is becoming especially so now that numerous life-shortening degenerative diseases, like heart disease, strokes and clotting disorders are increasingly linked to the ‘seed bed’ of inflammation. Remember implication in labeling a medication is legal. So, it follows labeling a group of medications as anti-inflammatory along side the growing body of evidence linking inflammation to the above diseases implies a benefit.

The medical establishment uses the vernacular, non-steroidal anti-inflammatory to classify this group (NSAIDS for short). So far these medications descriptive vernacular class sounds pretty darn hopeful.

But what if I explained the other, often omitted, side effects profile that actually promote inflammation within your arteries, stomach, kidneys, lungs and sinuses. You might then experience a pause before your next attempt to soften painful inflammation within your musculoskeletal system (muscles, joints, ligaments, tendons and connective tissue). Although the package insert for these types of medications has acknowledged most of these for years without really explaining why it has done a less than effective job acknowledging coronary artery inflammation being promoted by using these types of drugs.

It all began to unravel some years ago after it was noted that there was a strong correlation between injured workers ingesting what is called type 2 Cox inhibitors NSAIDs (Viox for example) and Myocardial infarction. Two of the three commonly used drugs in this class eventually were recalled and never distributed again. For years after, it was delegated as fact that these few drugs stemmed from the rarer Cox 2 inhibitors, while the majority derive from the Cox 1 inhibitor class (Ibuprofen for example).

A few years ago, another hole in the official story was blown into the discussion when the commonly used Ibuprofen was implicated in promoting heart disease! In fact, if you suffer from coronary artery disease, Ibuprofen is now contraindicated because of this strong association!

A more accurate descriptor of NSAIDs would be cognizant that although these types of drugs lower inflammation within the musculoskeletal system (muscles, ligaments, joints, tendons and connective tissue), they simultaneously promote shifting inflammation into the sinuses, lungs, stomach, kidneys and coronary arteries. In other words, they only move inflammation! These drugs shift inflammation from the musculoskeletal system (anti-inflammatory effect) towards the kidneys, stomach, sinuses, lungs and arteries (pro-inflammatory effect).

Hopefully, the above more complete discussion of the overall risks versus’ benefits imbues you with a pause the next time you reach for over the counter pain relief!