An aspirin study has revealed that 1 in 10 people taking daily doses to prevent a heart attack don't need to, and may be harming themselves in the process.
"You can have risk of bleeding in your stomach, you can even have a stroke that can cause a certain kind of bleeding inside your brain," Dr. Ravi Dave, a cardiologist at the UCLA Medical Center in Santa Monica,
told CBS News about the dangers of taking aspirin.
A study
published Monday in the Journal of the American College of Cardiology observed 68,000 patients taking aspirin to stave off heart disease.
The researchers behind the study found that 17 percent of the women in the group and 5 percent of the men were taking it unnecessarily. Across the entire group, 11.6 percent were taking aspirin "inappropriately" said the study.
"We need a discussion between the patient and the clinician to see that we’re not causing more harm than good," said the study's senior author, Dr. Salim S. Virani, a cardiologist at Baylor College of Medicine. "Public health risk could be high," he added, if too many people are subscribing to aspirin maintenance therapy.
"The concern was I not have a heart attack like my father did," said Brian Hull, a 57-year-old man taking a daily low-dose aspirin. "Knock on wood, I haven't had one yet and I'm hoping I won't have one forever!"
The New York Times pointed out that the American Heart Association recommends daily aspirin for those with a 10-year cardiovascular risk of 10 percent or more. Other health organizations recommend an even stricter limit of 6 percent risk.
© 2024 Newsmax. All rights reserved.