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American Morning

Study Shows More People Than Previously Believed Might Benefit from Taking Aspirin

Aired January 15, 2002 - 08:46   ET

THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.

THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.
PAULA ZAHN, CNN ANCHOR: We've all heard an apple a day is supposed to keep the doctor away. But it looks like the same thing may hold true for an Aspirin a day. A new study just released shows that more people than previously believed might actually benefit from taking Aspirin, and in very small dosages.

CNN's Rhonda Rowland joins us from Atlanta with this news. Boy, this has changed a little bit from the last study. Describe to us what the findings were.

Good morning.

RHONDA ROWLAND, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Good morning, Paula.

And that's right, what the situation is here, says there may be a new category of people who should consider taking an Aspirin a day. We've heard people at high risk of heart disease because they've already had a heart attack, a stroke, or maybe they have a condition like angina, that they should take an Aspirin a day.

Well now, healthy people with even a small risk of heart disease should continue talking to their doctor about this, and this is coming from a new government task force. What they're saying is people with a risk as low as 3 percent for having a heart attack over the next five years can take an Aspirin every day and reduce that risk by 28 percent, so that's quite considerable.

The people in this new group include men over the age of 40, postmenopausal women, and some younger people who have high cholesterol, high blood pressure, perhaps they have diabetes, or they're smokers, now taking an Aspirin a day should not be taking lightly. You shouldn't look at this list and say, I'm a man over 40, I should definitely take an Aspirin a day, because there are dangers. There are risks to taking it, such as GI bleeds, and also a slight risk of a brain bleed, known as a hemorrhagic stroke. So again, Paula, this is something you should really discuss with your doctor.

ZAHN: Rhonda, let's go back to that list of these new group of people who apparently it is OK now for them now to take Aspirin. Why in the past wasn't it a good idea for this same group to take Aspirin?

ROWLAND: Well, in this particular study, they were looking at all the data out there, to really figure out who should take Aspirin, to get a more precise idea about who would benefit, and this is still something that they don't want people to guess at. What they are recommending is that you access one of these free calculators available on the Internet. And so I went to one of these, which you can access through CNN.com, and I plugged in my husband's numbers. My husband is 41 years old. And I plugged in the information regarding his age, his blood pressure, specifically, the systolic number, which is the higher, or top number, also, HDL cholesterol -- that's the good cholesterol -- answered a few questions, and then answered one including whether or not he's had an EKG test showing that he has an enlarged left ventricle.

And then plugging it in after looking at his risk for a heart attack after five years, found that his risk was just 1 percent. So, Paula, he is a person who would not benefit from taking Aspirin. He would be at greater risk of having one of these GI bleeding events, or perhaps a brain bleed, one of these strokes. So That's why this has to be carefully considered.

ZAHN: And when you say carefully considered, obviously, that means computing this risk with a doctor on board, right?

ROWLAND: It's good to get your doctor on board, especially to get all your numbers straight. But you could go to this Web site, www.med-decisions.com. If you have the information, plug it in, and it will give you a precise answer, and it will recommend that you should talk to your doctor about Aspirin, or a blood pressure drug, or a cholesterol-lowering drug.

And also, Paula, I think it's important for people to know that they can reduce their risk of some of these GI bleeds by taking what's known as a low-dose Aspirin, what we have heard of as a baby Aspirin. It cuts the risk of these bleeds in half, so that is another option, and you get the same benefit.

ZAHN: Well, Rhonda, for the record, you have one generous husband, and a healthy one at that. Thank you for sharing some of his medical statistics with us this morning. You probably wouldn't have shared those if those numbers were any different.

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