Daily dose of aspirin is 'unnecessary' for healthy older people

Older people in good health may be taking aspirin 'unnecessarily', new research suggests.

Researchers found that aspirin taken daily by healthy adults over 70 did not significantly reduce the risk of non-fatal heart attacks, coronary heart disease and strokes.

The study also found that aspirin was linked with an increased risk of serious bleeding, in line with previous findings.

Professor John McNeil, who led the trial at Monash University in Melbourne, said: “Despite the fact that aspirin has been around for more than 100 years, we have not known whether healthy older people should take it as a preventive measure to keep them healthy for longer.

“It means millions of healthy older people around the world who are taking low-dose aspirin without a medical reason may be doing so unnecessarily, because the study showed no overall benefit to offset the risk of bleeding.”

"These findings will help inform prescribing doctors who have long been uncertain about whether to recommend aspirin to healthy patients."

Researchers in Australia and the US enrolled more than 19,000 healthy people, mostly aged over 70, for the trial. Half the participants were asked to take 100mg of aspirin each day, while the rest took a placebo pill.

After five years, researchers found that compared with the placebo, a daily aspirin had not reduced the risk of heart attack or stroke or prolonged the number of years people lived without dementia or physical disabilities.

In line with known side-effects of the drug, those in the aspirin group experienced more internal bleeding, with 3.8 per cent of those on the drug having serious medical conditions ranging from stroke to gastrointestinal bleeds, compared with 2.7 per cent in the placebo group.

Professor Peter Rothwell, of Oxford University, a leading expert on the drug, said the findings were definitive.

"Taking aspirin if you are otherwise healthy, over the age of 70, if you haven't had a previous heart attack or stroke, is really of very little benefit," he said. "And so self-medicating with aspirin in the absence of a definite medical indication isn't advisable."

The research was led by Monash University in Australia and the Berman Centre for Outcomes and Clinical Research in the US.