Advertisement

Aspirin Lowers Heart Attack Risk in Women

Share
TIMES MEDICAL WRITER

Regular aspirin use can cut the risk of a first heart attack in women just as it has been shown to do in men, according to yet another study that appears to identify additional applications for the medicine-cabinet mainstay.

The study, reported Friday at an American Heart Assn. meeting in Orlando, Fla., found that women who took one to six aspirin a week over a six-year period were 30% less likely than others to experience a first heart attack.

“Our view is that it is reasonable for physicians to consider using aspirin for prevention in women at sufficiently high risk for heart attack to outweigh any risk associated with the medication,” said the project director, Dr. JoAnn Manson.

Advertisement

But Manson warned that no one should begin taking aspirin regularly without consulting a physician. Heavy aspirin use can cause gastro-intestinal bleeding, and some researchers are concerned that it may raise one’s risk of certain strokes.

“It is important that aspirin be used only as an adjunct, not as a substitute for reducing other risk factors (for heart disease),” Manson added. Those risk factors include smoking, hypertension, diabetes, high cholesterol levels and obesity.

Heart attack is the No. 1 killer of American women, resulting in about 244,000 deaths each year. Women are more likely than men to die within a year of a heart attack and more likely to have a second heart attack within four years, experts say.

In the study, Manson and other researchers at Brigham and Women’s Hospital in Boston and Harvard University followed 87,678 female nurses. They found that the benefit of aspirin was greatest in women over age 50 and in women at the highest risk of heart attack.

Women who reported taking seven or more aspirin a week appeared not to benefit--perhaps because they were sicker or less active than the other women, or because of other factors related to the complexity of the blood-clotting system, Manson said.

The findings, reported at a scientific meeting on cardiovascular disease epidemiology, extend for the first time to women the startling 1988 results of a study on using aspirin to prevent first heart attacks in men.

Advertisement

Many studies already have shown that aspirin is effective in preventing second heart attacks. Aspirin therapy is now routine for heart attack victims.

Over the last few years, studies have concluded that regular doses of aspirin can cut down the occurrence of migraine and help reduce the risk of hypertension in late pregnancy.

Advertisement