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posted by martyb on Tuesday November 23 2021, @02:27PM   Printer-friendly
from the take-two-aspirin-and-call-me-in-the-morning...if-you-are-still-alive dept.

Aspirin Linked With Increased Risk of Heart Failure in New Study:

The influence of aspirin on heart failure is controversial. This study aimed to evaluate its relationship with heart failure incidence in people with and without heart disease and assess whether using the drug is related to a new heart failure diagnosis in those at risk.

The analysis included 30,827 individuals at risk for developing heart failure who were enrolled from Western Europe and the US into the HOMAGE study. "At risk" was defined as one or more of the following: smoking, obesity, high blood pressure, high cholesterol, diabetes, and cardiovascular disease. Participants were aged 40 years and above and free of heart failure at baseline. Aspirin use was recorded at enrolment and participants were classified as users or non-users. Participants were followed up for the first incidence of fatal or non-fatal heart failure requiring hospitalization.

The average age of participants was 67 years and 34% were women. At baseline, a total of 7,698 participants (25%) were taking aspirin. During the 5.3-year follow-up, 1,330 participants developed heart failure.

The investigators assessed the association between aspirin use and incident heart failure after adjusting for sex, age, body mass index, smoking, alcohol use, blood pressure, heart rate, blood cholesterol, creatinine, hypertension, diabetes, cardiovascular disease, and treatment with renin-angiotensin-aldosterone-system inhibitors, calcium channel blockers, diuretics, beta-blockers, and lipid-lowering drugs. Taking aspirin was independently associated with a 26% raised risk of a new heart failure diagnosis.

Journal Reference:
Blerim Mujaj, Zhen-Yu Zhang, Wen-Yi Yang, et al. Aspirin use is associated with increased risk for incident heart failure: a patientā€level pooled analysis [open], ESC Heart Failure (DOI: 10.1002/ehf2.13688)


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  • (Score: 5, Interesting) by Beryllium Sphere (r) on Tuesday November 23 2021, @07:31PM (1 child)

    by Beryllium Sphere (r) (5062) on Tuesday November 23 2021, @07:31PM (#1198988)

    The people who spend their careers studying such things have offered the possibility that the older studies demonstrating a clear health benefit to aspirin for primary prevention were from days when cholesterol and hypertension were not as well managed as now. If so that would mean there's less need now, and if there's less benefit the risk/benefit calculation has to change.

    There's no substitute for individualized diagnosis and prescription. My doctor is fully aware of the latest studies and taking my complete history into account recommended I continue aspirin.

    Something to remember when tracking scientific research is that reality can be a moving target.

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  • (Score: 2) by Joe Desertrat on Wednesday November 24 2021, @12:26AM

    by Joe Desertrat (2454) on Wednesday November 24 2021, @12:26AM (#1199094)

    My immediate thought was that all the study did was prove was that there is not a "one size fits all" answer to something like aspirin therapy. Aspirin apparently increases the risk of bleeding, so I suspect those who may have conditions where bleeding is a factor in increased health risk should limit their use of aspirin to periodical or no use rather than continued use. There are others where aspirin therapy produces little bleeding risk who may benefit from continued aspirin therapy. It should be between a patient and a doctor, with the patient having the responsibility of recognizing things that are happening with their body, and whether they should raise alarms or at least ask questions of their physicians.