The advice of an aspirin a day has always irked me. I’ve always seen it as the medical machine’s pathetic attempt to jump on the “prevention” bandwagon. “See, we’re progressive; we understand prevention.” Yeah, right…aspirin…prevention…tsk, tsk.

Well, current research shows that for healthy people, an aspirin a day may actually do more harm than good. British scientists with the Aspirin for Asymptomatic Atherosclerosis (AAA) project have uncovered that the risk of bleeding is great enough that its routine use in healthy people “cannot be supported”. Healthy people were those with no underlying cardiac or vascular problems.

Aspirin has been recommended as a blood clotting preventative by medical doctors for about 50 years. In the mid-1980s, despite there being very little conclusive evidence, the FDA was convinced to push aspirin as a preventive drug for heart attacks. Even mega super-star physician, Mehmet Oz in his book, You: The Owners Manual, pushes aspirin as a wonder drug. His Twitter post from two months ago proclaims,

BABY ASPIRIN, taken once daily, is proven to reduce stroke, heart attack, and many cancers. Kudos to those who got it right.

I hate to be the one to tell Dr. Oz, but: It’s not right!!!

I evaluate health from one simple philosophy: The human body, in it’s infinite intelligence, knows exactly what to do and when to do it. Do neglected bodies have internal disruptions such that they are unable to self-regulate efficiently? Absolutely. Are drugs under these circumstances useful? Absolutely. Do healthy people, with their complete capacity to self-heal and self-regulate need a foreign substance, a drug, to keep them functioning properly? Did they 200 years ago? 1000 years ago? We have evolved without drugs, haven’t we?

I’m no proponent of going back to an earlier age for a blue print on how we should live; but to me the answer is obvious. The notion that we need a daily drug to maintain our health and well being is a myth pushed on us by a cultural authority. But thanks to the objective eye of science, we now know–it’s wrong! It looks to me that the real health care crisis in this country is being exposed, and a political and cultural giant is being pounded to its knees.