SHAFAQNA – According to a new research, there is possibility that daily low-dose aspirin therapy may not provide significant heart-health benefits to older people.
The study involved over 14,000 Japanese people aged 60 to 85 years. Researchers found no major difference in heart-related deaths or non-fatal heart attacks and strokes between people who consumed aspirin and those who didn’t.
Study co-author Dr. Kazuyuki Shimada, of the University of Shin-Oyama City Hospital in Tochigi, Japan, said it shows that primary prevention with daily low-dose aspirin does not decrease the joint risk in this people.
Dr. Michael Gaziano, chief of the division of aging at Brigham and Women’s Hospital in Boston and a professor at Harvard Medical School said that in spite of this study’s findings, people should discuss with their doctors before they stop consuming aspirin to prevent heart attacks and strokes.
Gaziano, who co-authored a commentary accompanying the study published online November 17 in the Journal of the American Medical Association, said that patients should talk about this with their doctor because he thinks that it is not easy to do that calculation of benefit and risk without consulting a health care professional.
The study’s findings were presented by Shimada at the American Heart Association annual meeting in Chicago on Monday. For the study, doctors randomly prescribed daily low-dose aspirin to older patients with high blood pressure, high cholesterol or diabetes.
Then they keep eye on patients whether they would face fewer heart attacks or strokes as compared with similarly high-risk patients who were not taking aspirin. According to the study, for about five years, patients were tracked. Shimada noted at the time of his presentation that “the possibility that aspirin does have a beneficial effect cannot be excluded,” given the early end of the trial.
Shimada said the findings did not show significant difference in deaths, heart attacks and strokes for people taking aspirin.
According to Shimada, people who didn’t take aspirin were at increased risk of ‘mini-strokes’ and chest pain, whereas people taking aspirin were more likely to face dangerous bleeding.
Source : http://perfscience.com/content/214652-daily-low-dose-aspirin-therapy-may-not-have-significant-heart-health-benefits-older