Should healthy people take aspirin to ward off heart disease? The notion has been controversial, and the medical advice mixed. But a review of scientific data on the topic on Tuesday showed that any benefits are slight, and are counterbalanced by a matching rise in bleeding risks.
Aspirin is a blood thinner and can help prevent clots that may lead to heart attack or stroke. But aspirin also boosts the risk of hemorrhage in the brain, stomach and intestines. "When considering the totality of evidence, cardiovascular benefits associated with aspirin were modest and equally balanced by major bleeding events," said the report in the Journal of the American Medical Association.
The meta-analysis examined 10 prior studies involving a total of more than 164,000 people with an average age of 62. Comparing aspirin users to those who don't take aspirin, researchers found "significant reductions" in strokes, heart attacks and deaths from cardiovascular disease among those who took aspirin.
Aspirin use was also linked to an increased risk of "major bleeding events compared with no aspirin," it said. Statistically, the benefits were close to the risks.
If 10,000 people without heart disease took no aspirin for a year, 61 of them would have a heart attack or stroke, explained Kevin McConway, emeritus professor of applied statistics at The Open University. If 10,000 similar people took aspirin for a year, 57 of them would have a heart attack or stroke.
"Only four fewer in 10,000, but that still has some importance given how common such diseases are and how serious cardiovascular disease is," said McConway, who was not involved in the study.