Recent results from the Nurse's Health Study found that long term aspirin use may help to prolong lifespan in certain women. The study, published in the Archives of Internal Medicine, gathered information on more than 70,000 women over two and a half decades.
Women who enrolled in the study were both cancer and cardiovascular disease free at onset. They each answered questions about aspirin use as well as cardiovascular and cancer risk factors. After the follow-up period nearly 10,000 women had died.
All cause mortality, as well as cardiovascular and oncological mortalities were compared to aspirin use.
Women who used aspirin on a regular basis had an overall 25 percent decrease in all cause mortality. Meaning their risk of death in those 20+ years of followup was 25 percent lower for using aspirin. When looking at just deaths due to cardiovascular disease, the benefit was as much as 38 percent.
And when looking at deaths related to cancer, the reduction was only 12 percent. A smaller decrease, but statistically significant at any rate.
Most of the women needed to be taking the aspirin for 1-5 years consistently for the effect to be evident. In order to have a substantial benefit against cancer, most women had to be taking the aspirin for at least 10 years.
The effects of aspirin were most evident in older women (maybe because they had more years to be taking aspirin regularly) and in women with cardiovascular disease risk factors ( one primary reason to take aspirin).
Aspirin works via several mechanisms in the body. It is anti-inflammatory and also thins the blood, or lowers clotting risk. Both of these mechanisms are consistent with the benefit observed in the study.
The authors do not endorse women, especially older women, to go out and start taking one aspirin a day, but for those with risk factors for heart disease, it may be a suggestion of the future.
Posted by Dr. Christina Gutierrez on April 2, 2007 03:17 PM
