Study: Aspirin Lowers Stroke Risk for Most Women
Posted on: Tuesday, 8 March 2005, 06:00 CST
ORLANDO, Fla. -- Middle-age women can cut their risk of strokes but not heart attacks by regularly taking low doses of aspirin, and the pills help prevent both problems in women 65 and older, a major study found.
The results are opposite what is known about aspirin in men, where its benefit for stroke is limited and its ability to prevent heart problems is legendary. Since women proportionately suffer more strokes and men more heart attacks, this is generally good news, specialists said.
Researchers also found that taking vitamin E did no good for women of any age, confirming a study last fall that concluded supplements of this nutrient could even be harmful.
The new information comes from the Women's Health Study, the first rigorous, scientific test of whether long-term use of aspirin or vitamin E made a difference in cardiovascular risk in females. Previous research has been almost exclusively in males.
Findings were reported today at an American College of Cardiology meeting in Orlando. They also were being published online by the New England Journal of Medicine and will be in the March 31 print edition.
The study has "major public health implications," said Dr. Elizabeth Nabel, director of the National Heart, Lung and Blood Institute, which funded the research with the National Cancer Institute.
"In contrast to men, aspirin did not reduce the risk of nonfatal or fatal heart attacks in women of all ages but did so in women over age 65," she said.
The study was led by Julie Buring, Dr. Paul Ridker and others at Brigham and Women's Hospital and Harvard Medical School.
Bayer Healthcare supplied aspirin for it and the Natural Source Vitamin E Association supplied that nutrient.
In the study, 40,000 female health professionals 45 and older were randomly assigned to take either fake pills or 100 milligrams of aspirin every other day.
Source: Cincinnati Post
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