Cubic News

Aspirin Falling Out of Favour?

October 2011

The first Canadian antiplatelet guidelines have been released, and interestingly, they recommend against using aspirin for routine primary prevention of heart attack or stroke in healthy patients.

It would appear that the cardiovascular benefits from daily consumption of aspirin are very small in healthy patients and usually don’t outweigh the bleeding risks. Interestingly, the benefits in healthy women appear to be even less than in men. This is a significant change in thinking from the commonly held impression that an aspirin a day was an important way to prevent heart attack or stroke in healthy patients.

It should be noted that aspirin is still recommended for secondary prevention of a cardiovascular event in patients who already have heart disease. For patients looking to prevent an initial heart attack or stroke, they should only be taking aspirin if they have multiple risk factors such as high blood pressure and high cholesterol and a low risk of bleeding.

Finally, the recent guidelines suggest that there is no benefit in taking a daily dose higher than 81mg. There is no proof higher doses work better and they may increase the risk of bleeding.

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