July 29th, 2009 
My Health 
There are some common tests for most types of blood thinness (plavix not included as far as I know since it’s effect on thinness is different). I’ve taken tons of NSAIDs without any noticeable effect on blood thinness lab results but Aspirin at a gram or two a day will definitely result in more and/or easier bruising – while NSAIDs including ibuprofen and aleve will not, at least for me.
However, that being said, there are some potential heart risks, however low, that are associated with taking NSAIDS, especially in people who take a very lot and I think are taking no other kind of supplement support, including not taking any kind of multivitamins, and are usually not eating very well at all. I take a lot of supplements and vitamins and eat better than most, so I’m not really concerned. However, there is a small risk. That risk needs to quantified in my opinion because the risk of driving a car to the store to buy your NSAIDs is much greater.
I think risk always needs to be put in perspective since almost all choices we make in life involve trades offs with pros and cons and some of the risks we take for granted as part of daily activities are significantly greater than the ones that somehow catch our attention. If we worked on the riskiest choices we make from a list ordered by real risk, the ones we actually worry about the most are usually far far down the list.
I know my daughter worries about thunderstorms, earthquakes, and fires while the risk to her health from a poor diet concerns her little at all. The diet will most likely kill her years earlier than any of the others. I’ve been in tons of thunderstorms which I consider beautiful and awesome experiences, especially with lots of horizontal lightening, I’ve been several hurricanes and typhoons with their considerable risk and things crashing down all around our houses (in western Australia at 180 mph, a big storm, and in the Philippines with a rinkey dink built house and water dripping in at dozens of places and running down the walls of the kid’s bedroom), and I’ve been near large fires but have had nothing personal burn down, and it’s diet and driving that are really the biggest risks I experiences and these occur every day. I recently purchased a new vehicle and elected a large truck with top crash ratings for it’s safety margin, not gas mileage.
Right now, the biggest risk I think that exists to health and life is the collapse of the US dollar from gross overspending along with the freeing of all American bank accounts (see Argentina 2002 while used to have the 9th highest standard of living in the world) and the resulting collapse of the US standard of living. I expect that within 10 years, the quality of life in the USA will be 1/2 of what it is now if we are very very lucky. I’m in the process of moving my savings to non US denominated currencies of countries that are being more frugal in their spending to avoid the dollar’s continuing devaluation, and in accounts outside the reach of the US governments potential inflation busting attempts to control. The cost of gas in not going up primarily because of higher costs, but because oil is priced in US dollars and those
dollars are decreasing in value. The decreasing value of the US dollar will effect all aspects of life, including the ability to get any kind of decent heath care including supplements and vitamins, most of which are coming from international sources and will be priced in US dollars which will double or triple the prices to Americans unless they are able to pay for them in non-inflated non-US currencies. My political 2 cents for the day. Prepare.
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