Daily aspirin could be harmful

Healthy people who take aspirin to prevent heart attacks could be causing themselves harm, a new study has indicated.
 
Patients with symptoms of artery disease, such as angina, heart attack or stroke, sometimes take a small dose of aspirin every day to reduce their risk or further problems.
 
However, aspirin increases the risk of internal bleeding, and the risks may outweigh the benefits, according to the Scottish study.
 
All aspirin dosages are associated with an increased gastrointestinal bleeding risk, although a moderate but significant relationship between aspirin dose and bleeding has been demonstrated in clinical trials, the authors said.
 
According to the British Heart Foundation, which part-funded the research, people who do not have symptomatic or diagnosed artery or heart disease should not take aspirin, because the risks of bleeding may outweigh the benefits.
 
However, in patients who have already had a heart attack, the risk of a second is so much higher that the balance is in favour of them taking aspirin, according to Prof Gerry Fowkes from the Wolfson Unit for Prevention of Peripheral Vascular Diseases in Edinburgh.
 
Some 28,980 people aged between 50 and 75 who were free of clinically evident cardiovascular disease took part in the study. They were given a daily dose of 100mg of aspirin, or a placebo.
 
Major bleeding requiring admission to hospital occurred in 2% of the subjects in the aspirin group, and 1.2% of the placebo group.
 
The results of the study were presented at the European Society of Cardiology (ESC) 2009 Congress in Barcelona, Spain.

[Posted: Mon 31/08/2009]