Should All Adults Take a Daily Aspirin?
As more and more research is showing, more benefits is suggesting that a daily low-dose baby aspirin (81 mg) can reduce the chance of a 1st Heart Attack or Stroke. It can also definitely can avoid a repeat of one. It's also showing great progress in reducing various Cancers. Many clinical trials have shown a clear reduction in colorectal cancer from aspirin use, and long-term follow-up of those studies suggests aspirin offers protection against other types of cancers, too. Aspirin seems to have the biggest effect on colorectal, esophageal and stomach cancers, where reductions in excess of 30% were seen both for the development of new cancers and deaths. Smaller but fairly consistent benefits have been reported for lung, prostate and breast cancer, with both incidence and mortality reduced between 10% and 15%. Over 150 observational studies have also confirmed these findings. So before we get TOOO happy with this evidence, there are a couple serious drawback WHY NOT!!
Well one A report published in the Journal Heart in December found that if your risk of coronary artery disease or colon cancer is low, your chance of benefiting from daily aspirin is very low, too. In addition, The estimation was that for every 133 women on aspirin, one would suffer a major bleeding episode (requiring hospitalization), and one out of 29 would have milder bleeding. That's a little disturbing. Futhermore, the complications associated with regular use can be significant, and they increase as a person ages. Daily aspirin can cause gastrointestinal bleeding serious enuff 2 cause hospitalization, as well as fatal hemorrhagic strokes caused by bleeding in the brain...WHOA! Of course if we're doing this by-da-numbers, Eight deaths from cancer and heart disease would be prevented for every death from gastrointestinal bleeding or stroke. Those are pretty good odds!
So at the end of the day, is taking a baby aspirin worth the risk...based on a person's risk factors, but I'm no doctor! How you feel??
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