If you’re taking a daily aspirin to stay healthy, new evidence suggests you might want to reconsider.
Three studies published in the New England Journal of Medicine on Sunday cast doubt on the actual health benefits of taking a daily aspirin. What’s worse, the studies suggest that having even a low-dose aspirin each day could lead to serious health problems over time. CNN earlier reported on the findings.
The first study comes from Monash University in Australia, where researchers followed nearly 20,000 people across Australia and the U.S. For a period of five years. Half of those people used daily aspirin and the others did not. The researchers found that neither group had different chances of achieving “disability-free survival.” The group with aspirin, however, did experience more bleeding.
Two other studies aimed to identify the effects aspirin can have on the body. One of them found that daily aspirin use carried “the risk of major hemorrhage was significantly higher with aspirin than with a placebo. Major hemorrhage events primarily involved upper gastrointestinal and intracranial bleeding.”
Even worse, a third study on the topic found that those who used aspirin each day had a “higher all-cause mortality” among seemingly healthy older people than those who did not take aspirin.
The findings are nothing if not concerning for the millions of people around the world that take a daily aspirin each day. What’s worse, many of those people take an aspirin based on doctor’s orders.
Looking ahead, it’s unclear what impact—if any—the studies might have on future aspirin recommendations.