ASPIRIN AND THE KIDNEYS
Aspirin is one of the non-steroidal anti-inflammatory drugs (NSAIDs), a group of medications used in the symptomatic treatment of arthritis and many other causes of mild to moderate pain. Other drugs included in this group are Indomethacin, Motrin, Nalfon, Naprosyn, and Tolectin. Since they are «non-steroidal» (not like cortisone), they lack many of the undesirable properties of cortisone-like drugs, such as cortisone’s ability to raise the blood pressure, weaken the bones, depress immunity, and to mask infections.
The NSAIDs, however, have some serious side effects of their own, and one of these is a type of kidney damage, which occurs in about 1 percent of people treated with these drugs, particularly if they are taken for a long time. For this reason, some people are afraid to take an aspirin every day to slow blood clotting and hence to help reduce their risks of coronary heart attack and stroke.
That worry, according to correspondence in the Lancet (1:736), is an unnecessary one, since aspirin differs from all the other NSAIDs in that it lacks any ability to harm the kidneys when taken in usual doses by mouth. The reason for this is that aspirin is broken down by digestion in the intestine and further changed in the liver immediately after absorption so that, after usual dosages by mouth, not enough intact aspirin gets into the general circulation to harm the kidneys.
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