Reconsider Daily Aspirin Use

For most people a daily aspirin can clearly benefit people who have already had a heart attack or a stroke due to a blocked artery. But why shouldn’t everybody take a daily aspirin?

The problem is that even small doses of aspirin doubles the risk of gastrointestinal bleeding.  It also increases the risk of a life-threatening hemorrhagic stroke from bleeding into the brain. So, the decision on whether a person with no evidence of heart disease should take regular aspirin daily depends upon the balance between the risk of bleeding and the likelihood of cardiovascular benefit.

In March of 2009, the U.S. Preventive Services Task Force published their recommendations regarding aspirin use based on a review of research trials. These trials showed that aspirin reduced the risk of heart attacks in men with no symptoms of coronary heart disease (CHD) by about a third.  However, aspirin had no effect on the risk of heart attacks in similarly healthy women.

Given this new data, the Task Force made the following recommendations for men and women with no known CHD:

• Men less than age 45 should not take regular aspirin to prevent a heart attack or stroke.
• Women younger than 55 should not take aspirin to prevent a heart attack or stroke.
• Men between ages 45 and 79 should consider daily aspirin if the likelihood of lowering the risk of a heart attack exceeds the risk of bleeding.
• Women between ages 55 and 79 should not take aspirin to reduce their risk of a heart attack, but may consider using aspirin to lower their risk of stroke if this benefit outweighs the danger of possible bleeding.
• For men and women older than 80 there is insufficient evidence for or against the use of aspirin.

Please note that aspirin lowered the number of heart attacks and strokes but did not reduce either the number of deaths from these cardiovascular events or from all causes.

Staff – Everythingantiaging.com

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