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Millions of people taking aspirin to prevent a heart attack may need to rethink the pill.
A low-dose daily aspirin is recommended for people who have had a heart attack or stroke and for those who have been diagnosed with heart disease.
But for the rest in good health, this advice has been reversed.
The guidelines published this year have ruled out the routine use of aspirin in many older people who do not already have heart disease – and said it was reserved for some younger people under the orders of a doctor.
According to a new study by Harvard and the Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center, some 29 million people aged 40 and over were taking an aspirin daily despite the absence of known heart disease in 2017.
About 6.6 million of them did it on their own – a doctor never recommended it.
And nearly half of people over age 70 who do not suffer from heart disease – estimated at around 10 million – took aspirin daily for preventive purposes, the researchers reported in Annals of Internal Medicine.
"Many patients are confused about this," said Dr. Colin O. Brien, senior resident in internal medicine at Beth Israel, who led the study.
For years, doctors have urged people to take advantage of the anticoagulant properties of aspirin to reduce the chance of a first heart attack or stroke. Then, last year, three new surprising studies challenged this dogma.
These studies were among the longest and longest to test for aspirin in people at low or moderate risk of heart attack, and found only marginal benefit, if any, especially in people elderly. However, users of aspirin have among other side effects of bleeding from the digestive tract significantly higher. .
In March, these findings prompted the American Heart Association and the American College of Cardiology to change their guidelines:
– People over 70 who do not have heart disease – or who are younger but have an increased risk of bleeding – should avoid daily aspirin for prevention.
-Only some people aged 40 to 70 who do not already suffer from heart disease run a risk high enough to warrant 75 to 100 milligrams of aspirin a day, and that is at a doctor to decide.
Nothing has changed for survivors of a heart attack: aspirin is still recommended to them.
Australian Associated Press
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