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[stocks]

Aspirin: is it really a wonder drug?

Last week, researchers claimed everyone over 45 should take an aspirin a day to prevent against cancer and heart disease.
Victoria Lambert investigates

For one thing, aspirin’s usefulness in warding off heart attacks and strokes in healthy people is in doubt. The latest research, published in the Journal of the American Medical Association in March and involving almost 30,000 men and women, found it had no significant effect on heart attacks and strokes in low-risk populations.

And last year, the influential Drug and Therapeutics Bulletin (DTB), warned aspirin should not be used to prevent future heart attacks and strokes in people with no obvious sign of cardiovascular disease, as the risks outweigh any potential benefits.

The biggest drawback of taking aspirin is that it can irritate the lining of the stomach. Although for most people this side effect is mild, it can occasionally cause ulcers and in a small number of cases, serious bleeding, particularly in elderly people.

But what of the recent study on bowel cancer, the third most common cancer in Britain and which kills 600,000 people worldwide annually? Some doctors point out that while the study shows thousands of lives might indeed be saved by aspirin, the reduction in absolute risk of bowel cancer is about 1.5% (from 4% to 2.5%) .

'In effect, around 60 people would have to take the aspirin continuously for around 5 years to prevent one death from bowel cancer during a 20-year period,’ he says. 'While that remains a considerable benefit, it could clearly put a very different perspective on things for an individual deciding whether to take aspirin for this purpose.


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