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Ask WellAsk Well: Coated vs. Uncoated Aspirin If you take coated aspirin and have concerns about its absorption, you are better off crushing the tablets than splitting them. Crushing them does a better job of dispersing and removing the coating, said Dr. Garret FitzGerald, chairman of pharmacology at the University of Pennsylvania.
Dr. FitzGerald was one of the authors of a recent study, published in the journal Circulation and reported in The Times, that showed that the idea of aspirin resistance is essentially a myth. The research found that in people who appear to be immune to aspirin’s blood-thinning effects, it is the coating that interfered with the drug’s absorption, and not any resistance to the drug itself.
The results suggested that in roughly a third of people taking aspirin on a given day, “enough aspirin hasn’t been absorbed to affect platelets, and the assumption is made that they are aspirin-resistant,” he said. When uncoated aspirin is used, he said, this diagnosis disappears.
Still, Dr. FitzGerald said, if you’ve been taking coated aspirin daily for the prevention of heart attacks, it would be a mistake to assume you’re getting no benefit from it. Some of the drug is released and, over time, would build up to have “an indistinguishable effect” on platelets from that of regular aspirin.
The rationale for the coating on aspirin is that it protects the stomach against bleeding. But that benefit has never been borne out in research, he said. So the message of his study is that there is no reason to pay extra for coated aspirin when the uncoated tablets — usually generic — are cheaper.
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