For years older people have been taking an aspirin a day to prevent them from having a heart attack or stroke -- but now that conventional wisdom is being called into question.
The influential U.S. Preventatives Services Task Force issued new guidelines for when aspirin is safe to use. The change only applies to people taking aspirin to prevent a first heart attack or stroke. If you were placed on a low-dose aspirin because you already had a heart attack, had a stent, or had a stroke, you should continue taking the aspirin.
If you’re only trying to prevent a problem then everything comes down to benefit vs. risk. In general, the risk of bleeding outweighs any benefit in patients who are looking to prevent a heart attack or stroke but just haven’t had one yet.
Read: Daily aspirin no longer recommended to prevent heart attacks in older adults
If you have a heart attack or stroke, aspirin’s antiplatelet effect can be helpful in slowing the blockage. The problem is, it also increases your risk of bleeding.
More current research shows the risk of gastrointestinal bleeding and bleeding around the brain is high enough that the risk outweighs the benefit if you are 60 and older.
If you are between 40 and 60, there may be a benefit to a daily low-dose aspirin if you have a higher than 10% cardiovascular disease risk.
There are ways to help your body more than a daily aspirin would. You can not smoke, get your cholesterol under control, manage diabetes, eat a proper diet, and exercise.
There has also been a suggestion that a daily aspirin could also help prevent colorectal cancer. When officials looked at the data they determined the benefit in colorectal cancer wasn’t clear enough to outweigh the risk. More study would be needed.
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