Aspirin Causes Bleeding for Some
Reported June 03, 2009
(Ivanhoe Newswire) — An aspirin a day may keep a heart attack away, but it could also increase your risk of internal bleeding.
Research shows use of aspirin by patients with no heart disease history reduces non-fatal heart attacks by about one fifth. However, new data shows it also increases the risk of internal bleeding by about one third, potentially canceling out the drug’s health benefits.
“The currently available trial results do not seem to justify general guidelines advocating the routine use of aspirin in all healthy individuals above a moderate level of risk for coronary heart disease,” the study authors write.
For patients with a history of stroke or heart attack, long-term aspirin use reduced the risk of vascular diseases by one fifth, outweighing these patients’ small risk of bleeding.
SOURCE: The Lancet, 2009
