New Study Finds Taking Aspirin Daily May Do More Harm Than Good

Aspirin is a medicine that’s been around for decades and is taken by people regularly. And with 31 million injuries occurring each year that require medical attention, aspirin is often taken to help relieve pain. But for the past several years, people have been taking a daily dose of aspirin because it was said to protect people, especially senior citizens, from cardiovascular disease. Unfortunately, a new Australian study says otherwise — the study found that aspirin may actually do more harm than good.

The seven-year study found that long-term use of aspirin, even at low doses, offered more risks than benefits to healthy older people. The researchers looked at more than 19,000 healthy people 70-years old or older and found that taking 100 milligrams of aspirin each day did not provide the benefits that research has shown in the past. The participants did not see a prolonged lifespan of a significantly reduced risk of heart attack or stroke.

Heart attacks and strokes are health scares that older people often worry about. And as people age, they have plenty of other things to worry about too, like hearing loss. This is especially true given the fact that 900 million people worldwide will be hearing impaired by 2025. So when people are told that taking medication will help reduce the risk of concerns like heart problems, they’re bound to listen.

But according to lead researcher Professor John McNeil from Monash University, unless people have a medical reason for taking aspirin daily, they should think twice before starting daily doses of the medicine.

The study was designed to figure out if healthy, independent living seniors could see any added benefits of taking daily low doses of aspirin. At the end of the research period, 90.3% of the participants taking aspirin were still alive, as well as 90.5% of the participants who received placebos. The rates of coronary heart disease, strokes, heart attacks, physical disability, and dementia were all similar between the two groups, showing no added benefits for either.

Not only did the research find there to be no added benefits of taking aspirin each day, but there are also potentially serious side effects of taking even low doses of the medication too often.

Taking aspirin can increase the risk of serious bleeding, which is an even greater concern among the elderly.

According to Professor McNeil, “That’s an issue in the elderly when people’s blood vessels are a bit more fragile.”

And the results of the study showed that 3.8% of participants taking the aspirin saw hemorrhagic stroke, gastrointestinal bleeding, bleeding in the brain, and other bleeding that required hospitalization, compared to only 2.7% of the participants in the placebo group.

Fortunately, there are better treatment options for heart disease thanks to today’s medical innovations. Tools like cardiac catheterization can help diagnose and treat heart disease, so people should rely on proven medical tools and treatments rather than aspirin.

So while the current guidelines recommend those in their 50s with a high risk of cardiovascular disease, have high blood pressure or cholesterol, or with a history of smoking take a daily aspirin, this new research suggests that people take heed when considering daily doses of aspirin.