Aspirin

Centro de Idiomas
Prof. Alejandra Garca

Activities:
1 2 3 Choose the Best Word for the Context Listen and Check your Choices Discuss the Answers with the Teacher
Text Reference: VOA The Voice of America

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More than 2000 years ago/ later/ before, in ancient Greece, Hippocrates advising/

advised/ advise his patients about a way for/ for to/ to ease pain. The great doctor told/ said them to chew on the bark of the willow tree. The outer covering of the tree containing/ contains a chemical, salicylic acid. By the 1700s, people used/ use willow bark to/ for/ for to reduce high body temperatures.
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In 1860, researchers at the Bayer Company of/ in Germany copied/ copyed nature. They/ Them created acetyl salicylic acid.

And they taken/ took a name from the spirea plant, which also/ too contains the natural chemical. They called his/ their/ them new formula aspirin. Aspirin has being/ been sold for more than a century like/ as a treatment for headaches, muscle pain and high temperature. At/ On/ In 1982, a British scientist shared the Nobel Prize in Medicine in part for dicover/ to dicover/ discovering how aspirin
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works/ work / working. Sir John Vane found/ is found that aspirin blocks/ is blocked the body

from to make/ making natural substances called/ call prostaglandins. Prostaglandins have several/ severe effects on the body. Any/ Some cause pain and swelling in damaged/ damaging tissue. Others/ Other protect the lining of the stomach and small intestine. Prostaglandins also/ too make the kidneys/ kidneyes, heart and blood vessels work well/ good. But there are/ there is a problem. Aspirin works/ is worked against all prostaglandins,
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good and bad.

Scientists learned how aspirin interferes/ interfering with a/ some/ an enzyme. One form of this protein make/ makes the prostaglandin that/ what causes pain and swelling. Another form of the enzyme creates the protective kind of compound. So aspirin can reduce pain and swelling in damaged tissues. But it can also harms/ harm the lining of the stomach and small intestine. Aspirin competes these/ this days with a lot of other pain medicines. Very/ Many/ Much people like to take/ take acetaminophen.
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This/ These is the active substance in products like/ as Tylenol. Still, experts say aspirin do/ does/ done/ doing some things that

the others cannot. Many/ Much/ Very people take aspirin to/ for / for to reduce the risk of a/ an heart attack. Scientists say aspirin prevents tiny blood cells called platelets from sticking/ stick/ to stick together to form clot/ clots. Clots can block/ to block the flow of blood to the heart or the brain. This can to cause/ cause heart attacks or strokes/ stroks. The use of aspirin to reduce the risk of heart disease have/ has grown in recent years. Yet one doctor noted this effects/ effect
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in the nineteen-fifties.

The doctor was Lawrence Craven. He observed unusual bleeding among children what/ who chewed on aspirin gum to ease pain after a throat operation. Doctor Craven believed/ believes they was/ were bleeding because aspirin prevented the blood from to thicken/ thickening. He decided that aspirin might help/ to help prevent heart attacks caused for/ by blood clots. So Doctor Craven examined/ was examined medical records of about eight-thousand peoples/ people/ persons. He found no
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heart attacks or strokes among those/ that who regularly took aspirin. Doctor Craven invited other/ another scientists

to test him/ his/ its ideas. But it was very/ much/ many years before large studies took place. Doctor Charles Hennekens of the Harvard Medical School in Boston, Massachusetts, led one of the studies. In 1983, he begun/ began/ begin to study more than twenty-two-thousand healthy male doctors/ doctor over the age of forty. Half the doctors in the study took an/ a aspirin every other day. The other half took what they though/ thought/ taught was aspirin,
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but was just a sugar pill/ pil. Five years later/ after, Doctor Hennekens reported that the men who took aspirin

reduced his/ their/ him/ them chances of a heart attack. However, the men who took aspirin also had a higher risk of bleeding in the brain.

In recent years, a group of American medic/ medicine/ medical experts examined studies on aspirin for the Department of Health and Human Services. The experts said people who have an increased risk of a heart attack should take/ to take a small amount of
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aspirin every day.

People who are/ is most likely to suffer a heart attack including/ include men over the age of forty and women over the age of fifty. People who weight/ weigh too much or smoke cigarettes are also/ too at greater risk. So are people with diabetes, heart disease, high blood pressure or high cholesterol. Aspirin may help/ to help someone who is having a heart attack causing/ cause/ caused by a blockage in the flow of blood to
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the heart. Aspirin is thin/ thin/ thins the blood. This can permit/ permits blood to flow past the blockage in the artery. But heart

experts/ expert say people should seek emergency help immediately. They say an aspirin is no substitute for/ of treatment. Some people should not take aspirin. These/ This include people who have stomach problems. Doctors say people who take other blood thinners or have bleeding/ bleed disorders should not take aspirin too/ either. Some studies have been done/ have done on the effects of to take/ taking aspirin during the first signs of a stroke.
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These studies showed some improvement in the condition of the patients. But can aspirin prevent strokes in health/ healthy people?

The Archives of Neurology published a report in 2000 about aspirin and stroke prevention. Robert Hart and others at the University of Texas at San Antonio examined studies of more than fifty-thousand healthy people. Some of the people already had an increased risk of stroke, like/ as high blood pressure. Others had no signs that they might suffer/ to suffer a stroke in the future.
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The researchers found/ were found that aspirin did not seem/ seemed to prevent strokes, as long as people had no signs

of blocked/ blocking blood vessels in his/ their/ them brain. Doctors say aspirin may prevent small strokes than/ that result from such blockage. But the report said aspirin was linked/ linked to a small increase in the risk of bleeding in the brain. This can also cause a stroke. Like other medicines, aspirin can cause problems, especially if take/ took/ taken in large amounts. The acid in the drug may damage
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the tissue of the stomach or intestines. Aspirin can also interfere with the healing of the cells.

Some people development/ develop - severe/ several bleeding. Yet other research has been found/ has found that aspirin may help prevent cancers of the stomach and intestines. Studies in the last twenty years have shown/ have been shown that people who take aspirin have unusually low rates of such cancers. One of the newest/ new/ newer reports about aspirin involves the more/ most common form of breast cancer. In May,
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researchers announced findings/ finds/ founds from a study of almost three thousand women in New York City. The study compared

women who took aspirin severe/ several times a week to women who did not/ do not. Scientists from Columbia University say the aspirin users had a twenty-five percent lower rate of breast cancer. One of the doctors involves/ involved in the study said aspirin appeared to reduce the production of estrogen. This female hormone is linked/ links to up to seventy percent of all cases of breast cancer.
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The Journal of the American Medical Association published the findings. But the researchers say they are not / do not ready to

advise woman/ women to take aspirin in hopes of protection against breast cancer. But doctors do often advise aspirin for patients at risk of diseases that result from blood clots, such as a heart attack. In May, a Harvard Medical School publication said that some people, however/ although, get little or no protection from aspirin. The Harvard Heart Letter said this idea is very/ so new that many doctors are not/ do not know about it, or
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they are wait/ waiting for more research. Still, the report advised that it is not/ does not too early for people to ask

about being tested to see if they respond to aspirin. In any case, medical experts say no one should take aspirin for disease prevention without first asking a doctor. Aspirin is sold/ sells in different strengths. It can interfere with another/ other drugs. And it is not save/ safe for everyone. Most pregnant women are told/ tell to avoid aspirin. Children who take aspirin can suffer a serious disease called Reye's syndrome.
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Yet, even with its/ his/ her/ their problems, aspirin remains one of the older/ oldest/ old, least costly and most widely used drugs

in the world.