If you don’t need aspirin, don’t take it

THE EDITOR: Healthcare practitioners have long promoted the idea that taking low-dose aspirin is an effective way of lowering the risk of heart attacks among healthy individuals. In fact, it has become almost a rule of modern medicine – an aspirin a day keeps the doctor away.

Unfortunately, three recent related publications in The New England Journal of Medicine that have received wide news coverage have shown that this practice is an extremely bad idea.

These publications are based on a major randomised, double-blind, placebo-controlled trial considered to be the gold standard for clinical trials. It involved more than 19,000 older people over a five-year period and concluded that the use of low-dose aspirin as a primary prevention strategy in older adults did not result in a significantly lower risk of cardiovascular disease than a placebo but instead resulted in a significantly higher risk of major bleeding and death due to cancer. This caused lead author Prof John McNeil to warn: “If you don’t need it, don’t take it.”

In addition to these findings, aspirin is known to have many harmful side-effects. Some of these include toxic effects on the central nervous system ranging from mild confusion to coma, gastrointestinal effects including nausea, vomiting and abdominal pain, and renal failure.

It seems to me, therefore, that McNeil’s warning should be strictly followed. Additionally, the Ministry of Health should urgently examine this very important research on aspirin and advise the healthcare industry accordingly.

PROF STEPHAN GIFT

pro-vice chancellor, graduate

studies and research, UWI