For the past several years, we've been inundated with information about how aspirin can help with just about any medical condition.

Well, while an aspirin regimen may be good for a great many people, it's not right for everyone.

 

If you're like a great many people, you're taking a low dose aspirin to ward off stroke or a first time heart attack, but it would be a good idea to consult your doctor right now about how it might cause more problems than it helps.

According to an article at MSN Health and Fitness:

Researchers found that of nearly 69,000 U.S. adults prescribed aspirin long-term, about 12 percent probably should not have been.

That's because their odds of suffering a heart attack or stroke were not high enough to outweigh the risks of daily aspirin use, said Dr. Ravi Hira, the lead researcher on the study and a cardiologist at Baylor College of Medicine in Houston.

Just what are those risks? Well, according to Dr. Hira, that aspirin regimen can result in gastrointestinal bleeding or hemorrhagic stroke. That last one is bleeding in the brain and that's about as serious as it gets.

The results are based on medical records for nearly 70,000 patients across the United States.  Included in that group were people with high blood pressure who had not developed heart disease.

Researchers found that about 12% of those patients were prescribed aspirin when their actual risk of heart trouble and stroke were not high enough to justify the risk associated with the aspirin regimen.

The bottom line of this story is pretty much the same advice you'd get anywhere. As your doctor if your at a high enough risk to justify the risk involved. Also, don't prescribe yourself an aspirin regimen without talking to a specialist first.

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