You may know people who take a low dose of aspirin each day to lower their chance of having a heart attack. Before you try it, talk to your doctor. You'll need the go-ahead from someone who knows your medical history. You don't want the medicine to do more harm than good.
“It's weighing the potential benefits against potential risk,” says Byron Cryer, MD, a spokesman for the American Gastroenterological Association. “Treatment of heart disease to prevent heart attacks, vs. the risk of having a gastrointestinal bleed, which is the greatest concern with aspirin.”
Who Should Do It?
You shouldn't need aspirin every day if you've never had a heart attack and your risk of having one in the next 10 years is low. Your doctor might suggest it if you've had a heart attack or if you have a 10% or higher chance of having one, Cryer says.
One out of every three Americans aged 40 and older take it daily to protect their tickers.
The U.S. Preventive Services Task Force recommends that men 45 to 79 take an aspirin every day when the risk of a heart attack outweighs the risk of stomach bleeding. The same goes for women ages 55 to 79. Your doctor will know which risk is greater based on your health history.
“For people who have had a heart attack, have had a stroke, there's a clear recommendation to use aspirin on a daily basis,” says Lawrence Fine, MD, of the National Heart, Lung, and Blood Institute. “But the issue of whether to use aspirin in primary prevention [if you haven't had a heart attack] is a little bit more complicated.”
It all has to do with things that can raise your chance of having heart disease, such as:
- High blood pressure
- High cholesterol
- Diabetes
- Smoking
- Family history
Talk to your doctor if your medical history puts you in a high-risk group that will benefit from aspirin.
Take the Right Amount
For people with a high risk of heart attack, a low-dose aspirin (81 milligrams per day) lowers your chances. One baby aspirin each day is probably all you need. But even at the lowest doses, the blood-thinning effects of the medicine can cause bleeding in your stomach.
Aspirin also affects the hormone-like prostaglandins in your stomach, which help protect your stomach lining from damage. When you take aspirin daily, it can strip them away, making your stomach more likely to bleed.
Taking higher doses, like 325 milligrams, increases your risk of bleeding and stomach side effects, says Orly Vardeny of the University of Wisconsin-Madison School of Pharmacy. “For that reason, we stick with 81 milligrams, because we know it works, and it's less likely to cause some of these side effects.”
Some aspirin tablets have a coating that lets them break down in your small intestine, rather than the stomach. If you get an upset tummy from the drug, coated tablets may help. But they won't reduce your chances of stomach bleeding.
Some Pain Medicines Don’t Mix
Aspirin is in a class of drugs known as NSAIDs. They’re good for easing inflammation, but they also make stomach bleeding more likely.
More than 100,000 people who take NSAIDs (including aspirin) are hospitalized for stomach bleeding each year. Of all the people who have it due to NSAIDs, 40% take low-dose aspirin daily, Cryer says.
You're more likely to have a problem if you take more than one type of NSAID.
“When you take aspirin along with a pain medicine of the same class, like ibuprofen, you increase your risk of having a bleed by sixfold,” Cryer says.
If you have long-term pain, ask your doctor what drug to take with daily aspirin. They may prescribe you something or suggest over-the-counter acetaminophen. It's not an NSAID.
“For pain relief, especially in older adults that may have things like arthritis, the safest option for pain relief is acetaminophen,” Vardeny says, “because it doesn't have the same risk for stomach effects and bleeding.”
If your doctor wants you to take another NSAID along with your daily aspirin, they may also prescribe a drug called a proton pump inhibitor, which works in your stomach to lower the odds of bleeding.
When to Avoid Aspirin
Don't take it if you're allergic to it.
Talk to your doctor if you take blood thinners, because aspirin can mix poorly with them. The pairing can raise your chances of stomach bleeding.
“Unfortunately, the people who need blood thinners and aspirin tend to be the same,” Cryer says.
