Aspirin Doesn’t Help Prevent Heart Disease

A large, open-label, randomized study of the ability of daily-low dose aspirin to prevent cardiovascular events in elderly people with multiple risk factors for atherosclerosis was stopped early after 5 years because the aspirin wasn’t helping . . . .

The huge Japanese study included 14,464 people between the ages of 60 and 85 who had high blood pressure, unhealthy cholesterol levels or diabetes. They continued to take their regular medications and either added or did not add 100mg of enteric-coated aspirin.

After 5 years, 56 people had suffered fatal cardiovascular events in both the aspirin group and in the group who didn’t take aspirin: taking aspirin made no difference. Slightly more people in the aspirin group suffered a nonfatal stroke: 114 in the aspirin group versus 108 in the no aspirin group (a nonsignifican difference). Though taking aspirin did significantly reduce the risk of a nonfatal heart attack, overall there was no significant difference in cardiovascular events between the two groups. 

There was, however, significant increase in the risk of extracranial hemorrhages that required either transfussion or hospitalization. So, while aspirin did not help, it did hurt.

Contrary to conventional advice, the researchers concluded that taking low-dose aspirin once a day does not reduce the risk of fatal or nonfatal cardiovascular disease in elderly people with risk factors for atherosclerosis.

This is the second highly critical report of the use of aspirin to prevent heart disease this year (