Older adults without heart disease should not take daily low-dose aspirin to prevent a first heart attack or stroke, a health guidelines group said in preliminary updated advice released on Tuesday.
Bleeding risks for adults in their 60s and up who have not had a heart attack or stroke outweigh any potential benefits from aspirin, the US Preventive Services Task Force said in its draft guidance.
For the first time, the panel said that there might be a small benefit for adults in their 40s who have no bleeding risks.
Photo: AFP
For those in their 50s, the panel softened advice and said that evidence of benefit is less clear.
The recommendations are meant for people with high blood pressure, high cholesterol, obesity or other conditions that increase their chances for a heart attack or stroke. Regardless of age, adults should talk with their doctors about stopping or starting aspirin to make sure it is the right choice for them, said task force member John Wong, a primary-care expert at Tufts Medical Center in Boston.
“Aspirin use can cause serious harms and risk increases with age,” Wong said.
If finalized, the advice for older adults would backtrack on recommendations the panel issued in 2016 for helping prevent a first heart attack and stroke, but it would be in line with more recent guidelines from other medical groups.
The task force previously said that some people in their 50s and 60s might want to consider a daily aspirin to prevent a first heart attack and stroke, and that they might get protection against colorectal cancer, too.
The updated guidance says more evidence of any benefit for colorectal cancer is needed.
Doctors have long recommended daily low-dose aspirin for many people who already have had a heart attack or stroke.
The task force guidance does not change that advice.
The guidance was posted online to allow for public comments until Nov. 8.
The group is to evaluate that input and then make a final decision.
The independent panel of disease prevention experts analyzes medical research and literature and issues periodic advice on measures to help keep people healthy.
Newer studies and a repeat analysis of older research prompted the updated advice, Wong said.
Aspirin is best known as a pain reliever, but it is also a blood thinner that can reduce chances for blood clots.
Aspirin also has risks, even at low doses — mainly bleeding in the digestive tract or ulcers, both of which can be life-threatening.
Lauren Block, an internist-researcher at Feinstein Institutes for Medical Research in Manhasset, New York, said that the guidance is important because so many adults take aspirin even though they have never had a heart attack or stroke.
Block, who is not on the task force, recently switched one of her patients from aspirin to a cholesterol-lowering statin drug because of the potential harms.
Rita Seefeldt, 63, has high blood pressure and took a daily aspirin for about a decade until her doctor told her two years ago to stop.
“He said they changed their minds on that,” the retired elementary school teacher from Milwaukee said.
She said she understands that science evolves.
Wong said that the backtracking might leave some people frustrated and wondering why scientists cannot make up their minds.
“It’s a fair question,” he said. “What’s really important to know is that evidence changes over time.”
A fire caused by a burst gas pipe yesterday spread to several homes and sent a fireball soaring into the sky outside Malaysia’s largest city, injuring more than 100 people. The towering inferno near a gas station in Putra Heights outside Kuala Lumpur was visible for kilometers and lasted for several hours. It happened during a public holiday as Muslims, who are the majority in Malaysia, celebrate the second day of Eid al-Fitr. National oil company Petronas said the fire started at one of its gas pipelines at 8:10am and the affected pipeline was later isolated. Disaster management officials said shutting the
US Vice President J.D. Vance on Friday accused Denmark of not having done enough to protect Greenland, when he visited the strategically placed and resource-rich Danish territory coveted by US President Donald Trump. Vance made his comment during a trip to the Pituffik Space Base in northwestern Greenland, a visit viewed by Copenhagen and Nuuk as a provocation. “Our message to Denmark is very simple: You have not done a good job by the people of Greenland,” Vance told a news conference. “You have under-invested in the people of Greenland, and you have under-invested in the security architecture of this
UNREST: The authorities in Turkey arrested 13 Turkish journalists in five days, deported a BBC correspondent and on Thursday arrested a reporter from Sweden Waving flags and chanting slogans, many hundreds of thousands of anti-government demonstrators on Saturday rallied in Istanbul, Turkey, in defence of democracy after the arrest of Istanbul Mayor Ekrem Imamoglu which sparked Turkey’s worst street unrest in more than a decade. Under a cloudless blue sky, vast crowds gathered in Maltepe on the Asian side of Turkey’s biggest city on the eve of the Eid al-Fitr celebration which started yesterday, marking the end of Ramadan. Ozgur Ozel, chairman of the main opposition Republican People’s Party (CHP), which organized the rally, said there were 2.2 million people in the crowd, but
JOINT EFFORTS: The three countries have been strengthening an alliance and pressing efforts to bolster deterrence against Beijing’s assertiveness in the South China Sea The US, Japan and the Philippines on Friday staged joint naval drills to boost crisis readiness off a disputed South China Sea shoal as a Chinese military ship kept watch from a distance. The Chinese frigate attempted to get closer to the waters, where the warships and aircraft from the three allied countries were undertaking maneuvers off the Scarborough Shoal — also known as Huangyan Island (黃岩島) and claimed by Taiwan and China — in an unsettling moment but it was warned by a Philippine frigate by radio and kept away. “There was a time when they attempted to maneuver