[Barefoot]

Originally Posted by 2BNTV

81mg of asprin, (once per dya), reduces the risk of a heart attack and stroke, by 50%, according to a heart specialist.

There has been some recent "new thinking" on the debate about taking daily aspirin.

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Written by Dr. Julie Chen

In recent months, there has been some conflicting information in the news about aspirin -- whether it prevents cancer or whether it doesn't, and whether it actually puts people at higher risk of bleeding unnecessarily or not. Let's take a moment and try to get some important take-away points from these review studies so that we can safely use the information to our health benefit.

Let's start with the discussions that started in January of 2012, when studies suggested that using aspirin for heart disease or cancer prevention in otherwise healthy individuals unnecessarily puts these people at higher risk for bleeding. The concern was -- and is -- that aspirin, when used for disease prevention, may unnecessarily be putting people at risk for bleeding. However, aspirin is seen to be beneficial for those with strong history concerning for heart or vascular disease or cancers. So, should aspirin be used for prevention or not, and does it actually put people at higher risk for bleeding unnecessarily?

Then, in more recent months, some review studies looked at prior studies and concluded that daily aspirin therapy has a significant benefit for prevention of cancers, including colorectal cancer and esophageal cancer -- not to mention the cardio-protective effects of aspirin on top of that. These studies suggest that the bleeding risk is mitigated with long-term low-dosage daily use and becomes less of an issue with regular long-term use in the appropriate individuals and that bleeding from daily low-dose aspirin therapy is not a major consistent concern for most people.

So, what are we, as the general public, supposed to think? Do we or do we not use aspirin on a daily basis for heart disease and cancer prevention? Should we or should we not worry about the increased risk of bleeding?

As you may have noticed, the phrase that keeps repeating in these news reports is the concept of "in the appropriate individuals." This is the key concept I want you to take away with you from these reports... that baby aspirin is still medicine and that daily use should be something that you decide on whether it is appropriate or not for you with your physician.

The reason is because depending on your risk factors and your other medications, daily baby aspirin may in fact be beneficial for some; while for others, it would be inappropriate. You should also keep in mind that just because baby aspirin was at one point in your life appropriate for you, it may not always be appropriate if you have new diseases or conditions, or are on new medications. So you should always double check about your medications with your physician at your yearly physical to make sure that the medications you are on are still appropriate for your medical status.

While more studies may be needed to further decide whether daily aspirin therapy is indeed appropriate for all healthy individuals for heart disease prevention and cancer prevention, there is a distinct possibility that these studies will never be done at a large enough scale to definitively quiet the naysayers, because aspirin is a relatively inexpensive generic drug and may not be able to generate the glitz and glamour of a larger-scale study in the future to give us skeptics the definitive answer.