12 Things You Should Know About Aspirin

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5) Offer some protection against Alzheimer's disease. Research has been inconclusive, but a review published this year in the journal Neurology found people who used aspirin had a 13 percent lower risk of developing Alzheimer's. The study added to an ongoing debate about whether certain types of NSAIDs, say ibuprofen vs. aspirin, were more beneficial.

6) Help prevent strokes—unless you also take ibuprofen. A small study published this year in the Journal of Clinical Pharmacology found that stroke patients taking daily aspirin to prevent another stroke who also took ibuprofen—say, for their arthritis—reaped no antiplatelet benefit. After the patient stopped the ibuprofen, the aspirin became effective. The Food and Drug Administration warns that aspirin's benefits may be diminished by ibuprofen use.

7) Prevent asthma in middle-aged women. A study published in the journal Thorax this year found that women 45 and older who took 100 mg of aspirin every other day were 10 percent less likely to develop asthma over the next decade than women given a placebo. The study authors note that aspirin could exacerbate symptoms in about 10 percent of people already diagnosed with asthma.

8) Protect against Parkinson's disease. A 2007 study published in Neurology suggests that women who used aspirin regularly (defined as two or more a week for at least a month at any point in their life) may be 40 percent less likely to develop the disease.

9) Provide zero protection against heart attacks in people with diabetes. This month, the British Medical Journal published research that suggests diabetics taking aspirin to prevent a first heart attack were no less likely to experience an attack than those taking a placebo. People with diabetes are at least twice as likely to develop heart disease or have a stroke as the general public.

10) Offer no protection to some sufferers of heart attack or stroke. A research review published in the British Medical Journal in January found that nearly 30 percent of people with cardiovascular disease who took prescribed aspirin were resistant to its effects. Such "aspirin resistance," the study found, makes such patients four times as likely as those for whom aspirin had an effect to have a heart attack, stroke, or die.

11) Cause stomach troubles. People taking aspirin or another NSAID are at higher risk of gastrointestinal bleeding and stomach ulcers—particularly with long-term use of the drug.