Nation : Aspirin Cuts Risks of Strokes

An aspirin a day cuts in half the risk of strokes caused by abnormal heartbeats, devastating disruptions of blood flow to the brain that strike 75,000 Americans each year, a major new study concludes.

Such strokes are triggered by extremely rapid beating of the heart’s upper chambers. Blood clots that form inside the heart are launched into the bloodstream and travel to the brain, where they get stuck and choke off the blood supply.

Recent studies have shown that aspirin can dramatically lower the risk of heart attacks, but doctors had said they had little reason to hope that the commonplace medicine could ward off the disastrous effects of clots that arise in the heart.

However, the study in today’s New England Journal of Medicine found that people with the heart condition, known as atrial fibrillation, suffered only half as many strokes if they took a single aspirin tablet each day.