An aspirin a day can keep the doctor away
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ASPIRIN may do more for women than ease their aches and pains. A new study in the Archives of Internal Medicine this week concludes that women who take low to moderate doses of aspirin over the long term have a reduced risk of dying, particularly from heart disease.
The authors examined information from the Nurses' Health Study, involving 79,439 women who were free from heart disease and cancer when they enrolled.
Beginning in 1980, then every two years until 2004, participants were asked if they used aspirin regularly, and if so, how many tablets they usually took per week.
In total, 45,305 women did not use aspirin and 29,132 took low to moderate doses (one to 14 standard 325-milligram tablets per week). By 2004, 9477 of the women had died - 1991 of heart disease and 4469 of cancer.
Women who took aspirin had a 25 per cent lower risk of death from any cause, a 38 per cent lower risk of death from heart disease and a 12 per cent lower risk of death from cancer than women who never took aspirin.
Using aspirin for one to five years reduced heart disease risk, while cancer risk was only reduced after at least 10 years of aspirin use.
Many Australian doctors strongly recommend that regular therapeutic aspirin should be taken only in the slow release form to avoid stomach ulceration.
Stomach ulceration is sometimes associated with long term and regular soluble aspirin use. The slow release form is widely sold by pharmacies as CARTIA®. A doctors prescription is not required.
CARTIA® is also available for purchase online at competitive prices from Pharmacy Direct.
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