Aspirin can help avoid damage from a stroke or a heart attack if we take it during the attacks. In fact, there are ads showing how aspirin can save your life during a heart attack. There are a few researches that can support that claim.
For those who have already experienced a heart attack or a stroke, a daily dose of aspirin can actually prevent another heart attack or strokes.
However, although aspirin can prevent heart attacks or strokes from happening again (secondary prevention), there have been a number of issues referring to daily aspirin use to prevent a first heart attack or stroke (primary prevention). In order for someone to use aspirin as a primary prevention, doctors are supposed to check their risk of a heart attack or stroke and then later decide whether or not it is okay for them to take aspirin.
But the new draft guidelines for the use of aspirin got people confused as to who really should be taking aspirin.
What do the new draft guidelines say about aspirin?
The guidelines from the United States Preventive Services Task Force basically suggest adults between the ages of 50-59 to take aspirin if they at least have a 10% 10-year risk of having a heart attack or stroke after being measured by a risk calculator.
For those who are 60-69 years of age, the task force explained that it may be less effective compared to those people whose age are between 50-59. However, aspirin may still be used provided there is a very low risk of bleeding as a side effect.
But for those patients who are younger than 50 or older than 70, the task force decided that there are no enough evidence to recommend them to use aspirin. This is a major deviation from the 2009 recommendation where it was suggested that all adults ranging from 45-79 years of age with an elevated risk of a heart attack or stroke, take the drug.
This change happened in part because of a push to make medical guidelines strictly evidence-based. Right now, there are no randomized trials comparing aspirin to placebo in adults older than 70 or younger than 50. Without evidence, you can't have evidence-based recommendations.
Basing guidelines strictly on evidence makes sense, but clinical trials are rarely perfect, and recommendations on how to use medications should make sense to the primary care giver in order to avoid confusion.
