Daily Aspirin Use May Lengthen a Woman's Life, Study Shows
Years of regular aspirin use may lengthen a woman's life: Research published today in the Archives of Internal Medicine suggests that low to moderate daily doses over the long term reduce the risk of death from all causes by 25 percent. For colorectal cancer, the risk plunged by as much as half. More specifically, women without a history of cardiovascular disease who took aspirin regularly were 38 percent less likely to die from heart problems than women who didn't take aspirin, and women with no history of cancer saw their risk of death from cancer fall by 12 percent. The effects were most pronounced in older women and those with the most cardiovascular risk factors.
While it is well established that men and women who have had a cardiovascular event in the past–like a heart attack or stroke–stand to benefit from daily low-dose aspirin use, regular aspirin use by women as a preventative measure has been controversial. In their search for better answers, researchers analyzed data from the Nurses Health Study, which gathered health and lifestyle information from participants every two years from 1980 to 2004. A cardiovascular benefit was apparent within five years of beginning aspirin use; the overall cancer benefit was not seen until after at least 10 years of use.
"This [research] doesn't change my practice, but it bolsters the evidence," says Sharonne Hayes, cardiologist and director of the Women's Heart Clinic at the Mayo Clinic in Rochester, Minn. "Women over 65 should consider aspirin strongly," she says. Younger women and their doctors will need to weigh whether the benefits outweigh the risks of gastrointestinal bleeding. Hayes also points out that aspirin seems to elevate the risk of hemorrhagic stroke in women. Instead of suggesting widespread aspirin use, says Andrew Chan, lead author of the study and a gastroenterologist and assistant professor of medicine at Harvard University, "our study, as well as several others, indicate that this kind of therapy will likely involve some incorporation of a patient's risk factors and age."
The research also found a reduction in risk of death associated with lung cancer (26 percent) and breast cancer (32 percent) but only after 20 years of aspirin use.
Experts agree that the Nurses Health Study has considerable statistical power because of its size and the 24 years of follow-up, but they also note its limitations as an observational study, which isn't as reliable as a randomized clinical trial. John Baron, an epidemiologist at Dartmouth Medical School who comments on Chan's study in the same issue of the Archives of Internal Medicine, says the response to the findings should be cautious. Baron, who has consulted for Bayer and says aspirin is "a remarkable drug," finds the 25 percent reduction in risk of death overall hard to believe and cautions women to consider the risks.