Millions of healthy people who take aspirin to prevent heart disease in the elderly, unlikely to benefit from medications, reveal new research. A series of scientific papers published in the New England Journal of Medicine.
Daily intake of this blood-thinning medications can protect elderly people who have previously suffered a heart attack or stroke. But the scientists found that the drug does not extend life healthy (not encountered with cardiovascular events) people over the age of 70 years.
Australian and American doctors included in his study of over 19,000 older people who have not endured a heart attack or stroke. Most of them were over 70 years prior to the study. Half of the participants received 100 grams of aspirin every day, the other half were given a placebo.
For older persons was observed for about five years. Doctors found that compared to placebo daily aspirin did not reduce the risk of heart attack and stroke and add years lived without dementia and physical disability.
At the same time, in the group of aspirin at 3.8% of people had gastrointestinal bleeding, heart attacks, strokes. In the placebo group, this figure amounted to 2.7%.
Despite the fact that aspirin is used more than 100 years, we did not know whether healthy older people to take it as prevention to increase life expectancy, said John McNeil (John McNeil) from Monash University (Monash University) in Melbourne.
He added that currently, millions of healthy older people around the world are taking low doses of aspirin unnecessarily.
Suddenly the doctors determined that those who received aspirin, a little more often died during the study (5,9%), than those taking a placebo (5.2 percent). A additional death happened in connection with cancer, but experts are calling to treat these results with caution.
A small increase in total mortality, mainly of cancer, including bowel cancer and unexpected find. Previously, some studies have shown that aspirin does not increase, and reduces the incidence of colon cancer. The authors faithfully kept a cautious tone when pointing out unexpected effects, says Stephen Evans (Stephen Evans), Professor at the London school of hygiene and tropical medicine (London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine).
Ukrainian Andrei