(HealthDayNews) -- Experts advise that if you think you're having a heart attack, the first thing you should do is chew an aspirin tablet.
But because aspirin starts to break up as soon as it touches your tongue, why chew it instead of swallowing it?
Here's why, according to the American Journal of Cardiology. Researchers at the University of Texas Southwestern Medical School recruited 12 volunteers and measured the length of time it took for the aspirin to inhibit blood clotting, which is the reason to take it after a heart attack.
They found that swallowing a whole aspirin takes 12 minutes to have any effect on your blood's clotting time; drinking a liquid remedy containing aspirin takes seven minutes to work, but chewing a regular aspirin tablet begins showing benefits in only five minutes.
