Aspirin a Day, will it do you more harm then Good?

         Some 43 million Americans do it every day: take a tiny aspirin to help prevent heart attacks and strokes. In fact, doctors have been routinely recommending the practice to older adults for years. But recently, experts have been questioning the aspirin-a-day regimen, concerned that this everyday miracle drug can pose serious risks, including bleeding in the brain and stomach.
The aspirin-a-day controversy erupted publicly in March when a 10-year study of nearly 30,000 adults ages 50 to 75 without known heart disease found that a daily aspirin didn’t offer any discernible protection. The group taking aspirin had cardiovascular disease at the same rate as those taking a placebo. Moreover, the study—published in the Journal of the American Medical Association—reported that taking a daily aspirin (100 mg) almost doubled the risk of dangerous internal bleeding.

And last year the U.S. Preventive Services Task Force—a panel of medical experts—issued new guidelines for patients, recommending only those at risk for heart attacks or strokes should take a daily aspirin. Risk factors include having high blood pressure, high cholesterol and diabetes, as well as being overweight.
The panel also recommended that people over 80 not take aspirin at all because of bleeding risk.
For the first time, the panel also broke down its advice by gender, recommending against daily aspirin use in women under 55 and men under 45.
Is it right for you?

So, should you take a daily aspirin or not? The answer is not quite as simple as doctors previously thought. Aspirin, they say, can still be a lifesaving drug, but it’s not for everyone.
For reasons researchers don’t fully understand, aspirin seems to provide different benefits for men and women.

In men, aspirin can prevent heart attacks but seems to have no effect on strokes, says Michael LeFevre, M.D., a member of the task force that wrote the new guidelines and a professor of family medicine at the University of Missouri. Conversely, he says, aspirin appears to help women avoid strokes but not heart attacks.
The new recommendations suggest that aspirin will be most beneficial to:
men between 45 and 79 who have a high risk for heart attacks;

women between 55 and 79 who are at high risk for strokes.
Drawbacks

Aspirin, which has been around for more than 100 years, is a cheap, easy, effective way to control pain and inflammation. In 1989, when a major study revealed that a small dose could reduce the risk of stroke and heart attack by preventing blood clots, doctors began recommending that their older patients take a low dose of aspirin, 81 mg, every day.
“Aspirin is a lifesaving medicine in patients with established cardiovascular disease,” says Jeffrey Berger, M.D., a cardiologist at New York University who has studied the use of aspirin. But, he warns, it does come with some real drawbacks.
Aspirin has been linked with chronic ringing in the ears (tinnitus), and earlier this year scientists reported that people who took aspirin regularly were more likely to suffer from hearing loss.
                                                                                                                      Source: AARP                                                                                                                                                                        Lilyruths"This and that friendly cottage" Pets welcomed. "Old folks remedies, to cure what ailes you.. find it here. You can leave your COMMENTS, your likes or dislikes,"this and that" Speak about anything is what this cottage is all about! Tell your friends. about "Lilyruths "And SUBSCRIBE to my Readers Feeds:               http://feeds.feedburner.com/lilyruthsthisandthat.friendlycottage