As time goes on, more and more researched studies are being shown to be incorrect. Taking low dose aspirin to prevent heart attacks might be the next…
Please read the entire article to learn more about aspirin, statin drugs and more!
In this newsletter, we’re going to be talking about daily, low-dose aspirin as recommended by the American Diabetes Association, the American Heart Association, the American Stroke Association, and probably 90% of the doctors’ offices you walk into. 1 In fact, this message has been so-well inculcated into the American public that over 30% of the adult population now self-reports as taking low-dose aspirin for primary or secondary cardiovascular disease prevention. 2
Perhaps not coincidently, the use of aspirin to prevent heart attacks parallels the use of statin drugs to prevent heart attacks. And by that, I mean they have three things in common.
- Studies have indicated that their use is minorly beneficial for people who have already had one heart attack
- There are no studies that indicate they are beneficial for people who have never had a heart attack
- And they both come with potentially serious side effects
When it comes to statin drugs, although you may believe the medical community is unified in its commitment to their use as a prophylactic, that’s simply not the case. As we mentioned earlier, the debate within the medical community is intense–especially as more and more studies indicate that the rewards do not outweigh the risks unless you’ve already had a heart attack. And even then, there may be better alternatives.
When it comes to aspirin, however, there has not been as much debate, simply because there haven’t been many gold standard studies to support the contrarian point of view. To be fair, there have been several large, randomized trials that have shown that daily aspirin has some mild efficacy when it comes to the secondary prevention of cardiovascular disease and stroke among persons with a history of those diseases.3, 4, 5 But as with statin drugs, the evidence supporting a benefit for aspirin therapy in the primary prevention of cardiovascular disease is far less substantive. Nevertheless, it has been “assumed” by the medical community that because senior citizens (more so than among younger persons) have a higher risk of cardiovascular disease, they would see an increased benefit from the use of daily aspirin–even though this benefit may be accompanied by an increased risk of bleeding.6, 7, 8 In other words, even though the rationale behind it is largely assumptive, doctors enthusiastically recommend it to their patients, the media constantly runs stories about it, and aspirin manufacturers aggressively promote it on television–to the point that aspirin companies had to begin running ads to remind people that aspirin can also be used for pain. The thing is–and the reason we’re talking about this today– that despite the widespread use of low-dose aspirin in elderly persons who do not have a medical indication for aspirin, there is limited evidence that the beneficial effects outweigh the risks in this age group.
Which brings us to the study of the moment, released just days ago; it calls the entire low-dose, aspirin protocol into question.
Continue Reading…
