# Should everyone take a baby aspirin? **URL:** \ **Category:** Factual Questions\ **Created:** [January 10, 2015, 4:29pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/should-everyone-take-a-baby-aspirin/709480 "2015-01-10T16:29:32Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 11\ **Page:** 1
**Author:** ![dolphinboy](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/dolphinboy/32/330_2.png) [@dolphinboy](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/dolphinboy)\ **Post date:** [January 10, 2015, 4:29pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/should-everyone-take-a-baby-aspirin/709480/1 "2015-01-10T16:29:32Z")
Okay, maybe not everybody, I don’t think kids need to take them, and if you are sensitive or allergic to aspirin you shouldn’t take them, but other than that is there an adult that can’t benefit from taking a baby aspirin? When I was in my 30’s my PCP, who happened to be a cardiologist, said that a study he read showed the benefit of baby aspirin to adults. Although I was being treated for elevated cholesterol at the time, I didn’t have a family history of cardiac disease or strokes. Besides a statin he also put me on a daily baby aspirin and said it would help protect me from heart attacks and strokes down the road. In talking to people my age very few of them take a baby aspirin. Most say they don’t need it yet. I’m not in favor of taking anything you may not really need, but I think this is the exception that proves the rule. Since the cost is low, the side effects are few, and the benefits are high, at least potentially, why wouldn’t every adult take a baby aspirin? What am I missing? ---
**Author:** ![Fear\_Itself](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/fear_itself/32/19637_2.png) [@Fear\_Itself](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Fear_Itself)\ **Post date:** [January 10, 2015, 4:31pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/should-everyone-take-a-baby-aspirin/709480/2 "2015-01-10T16:31:57Z")
After my perforated ulcer, my doctor said I should not take any NSAIADS. ---
**Author:** ![dolphinboy](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/dolphinboy/32/330_2.png) [@dolphinboy](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/dolphinboy)\ **Post date:** [January 10, 2015, 5:10pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/should-everyone-take-a-baby-aspirin/709480/3 "2015-01-10T17:10:24Z")
> [@Fear\_Itself](#): > > After my perforated ulcer, my doctor said I should not take any NSAIADS. That’s a very good reason not to take them. I’m not suggesting taking them without asking your doctor first. ---
**Author:** ![bob\_2](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/bob_2/32/3341_2.png) [@bob\_2](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/bob_2)\ **Post date:** [January 10, 2015, 5:13pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/should-everyone-take-a-baby-aspirin/709480/4 "2015-01-10T17:13:53Z")
There have been studies that suggest the problems may outweigh the well known benefit. > [@](#): > > TUESDAY, May 6, 2014 (HealthDay News) – Taking an aspirin a day can help prevent heart attack and stroke in people who have suffered such health crises in the past, but not in people who have never had heart problems, according to the U.S. Food and Drug Administration. and > [@](#): > > ~ an analysis of data from major studies does not support the use of aspirin as a preventive medicine in people who have not had a heart attack, stroke or heart problems. In these people, aspirin provides no benefits and puts them at risk for side effects such as dangerous bleeding in the brain or stomach, the FDA said. More on this at [More Than Abortion: Your Reproductive Rights](http://www.webmd.com/heart-disease/news/20140506/daily-aspirin-regimen-not-safe-for-everyone-fda-warns) ---
**Author:** ![dolphinboy](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/dolphinboy/32/330_2.png) [@dolphinboy](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/dolphinboy)\ **Post date:** [January 10, 2015, 6:02pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/should-everyone-take-a-baby-aspirin/709480/5 "2015-01-10T18:02:26Z")
> [@bob\_2](#): > > There have been studies that suggest the problems may outweigh the well known benefit. > and > More on this at [More Than Abortion: Your Reproductive Rights](http://www.webmd.com/heart-disease/news/20140506/daily-aspirin-regimen-not-safe-for-everyone-fda-warns) Yikes. Any doctors on the board who would like to weigh in? ---
**Author:** ![vomit\_comet](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/v/73ab20/32.png) [@vomit\_comet](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/vomit_comet)\ **Post date:** [January 10, 2015, 6:26pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/should-everyone-take-a-baby-aspirin/709480/6 "2015-01-10T18:26:33Z")
Was the study paid for by Bayer, by any chance? ---
**Author:** ![iljitsch](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/i/77aa72/32.png) [@iljitsch](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/iljitsch)\ **Post date:** [January 10, 2015, 8:50pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/should-everyone-take-a-baby-aspirin/709480/7 "2015-01-10T20:50:31Z")
In general I’m very suspicious of the notion that a healthy human could be even healthier by taking a certain medicine or superfood. If our bodies required baby aspirin, wouldn’t we crave foods that contain it and/or produce it ourselves? See the whole antioxidant debacle. Antioxidants fight free radicals, and those are bad. So get megadoses of antioxidants and live longer! Turns out, our bodies need a certain level of free radicals to function properly, and antioxidants can even get in the way of cancer treatments. So taking more antioxidants may shorten your life. ---
**Author:** ![Martin\_Hyde](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/47e85d/32.png) [@Martin\_Hyde](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Martin_Hyde)\ **Post date:** [January 10, 2015, 8:53pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/should-everyone-take-a-baby-aspirin/709480/8 "2015-01-10T20:53:11Z")
Not a doctor or anything, but what I’ve always heard on this issue is that if you have a lot of risk factors for heart disease, such as obesity, bad family history, perhaps angina (a physical symptom suggesting you genuinely have heart disease), or etc then it makes sense given the best knowledge we have to prescribe you a daily low dose of aspirin as that’s been shown to help. But for healthy persons with none of those sort of indicators, you have to weigh the side effects of taking aspiring every day against a much lesser chance that you have any heart disease that will be aided by taking the aspirin. ---
**Author:** ![DingoelGringo](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/9d8465/32.png) [@DingoelGringo](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/DingoelGringo)\ **Post date:** [January 10, 2015, 11:17pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/should-everyone-take-a-baby-aspirin/709480/9 "2015-01-10T23:17:44Z")
> [@dolphinboy](#): > > Okay, maybe not everybody, I don’t think kids need to take them, and if you are sensitive or allergic to aspirin you shouldn’t take them, but other than that is there an adult that can’t benefit from taking a baby aspirin? > > When I was in my 30’s my PCP, who happened to be a cardiologist, said that a study he read showed the benefit of baby aspirin to adults. Although I was being treated for elevated cholesterol at the time, I didn’t have a family history of cardiac disease or strokes. Besides a statin he also put me on a daily baby aspirin and said it would help protect me from heart attacks and strokes down the road. > > In talking to people my age very few of them take a baby aspirin. Most say they don’t need it yet. I’m not in favor of taking anything you may not really need, but I think this is the exception that proves the rule. > > Since the cost is low, the side effects are few, and the benefits are high, at least potentially, why wouldn’t every adult take a baby aspirin? What am I missing? I’ve been to a few dozen doctors over the years since being diagnosed with diabetes. one will recommend this and the next something different. I was taking several supplement type pills when a new doctor asked me why I was taking two blood thinners. I allowed as how I didn’t know I was, He pointed out the aspirin and vitamin E(?) I had blood just under the surface of my skin on one arm quite often. He said it was because of the aspirin and Vit E. SO I stopped them both and haven’t seen the problem since. But I live in the tropics where there is less need to thin the blood. ---
**Author:** ![pohjonen](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/pohjonen/32/423_2.png) [@pohjonen](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/pohjonen)\ **Post date:** [January 11, 2015, 12:35am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/should-everyone-take-a-baby-aspirin/709480/10 "2015-01-11T00:35:28Z")
A few months of that and I was doing some not insignificant crapping of blood, not to mention some really annoying tinnitus. It most definitely was not good for me. ---
**Author:** ![Wesley\_Clark](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/wesley_clark/32/20581_2.png) [@Wesley\_Clark](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Wesley_Clark)\ **Post date:** [January 11, 2015, 1:27am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/should-everyone-take-a-baby-aspirin/709480/11 "2015-01-11T01:27:26Z")
The numbers are all over the place from the studies, so I really don’t know. However this site says that only 1 in 1667 people who took an aspirin a day were helped because they avoided a CVD event (this was primary prevention). I have no idea about the age of the people in question, or what other risk factors they had (many studies on CVD benefits seem to focus on people 50+ in age, but I have no idea about this one). [http://www.thennt.com/nnt/aspirin-to-prevent-a-first-heart-attack-or-stroke/](http://www.thennt.com/nnt/aspirin-to-prevent-a-first-heart-attack-or-stroke/) So if that is accurate, there is a 0.06% a year you will benefit, or a 1.5% you’ll benefit if you do it for 25 years. Or a 98.5% you won’t benefit for 25 years of doing it. For those with known heart disease or a history of CVD events the numbers are better. [http://www.thennt.com/nnt/aspirin-for-cardiovascular-prevention-after-prior-heart-attack-or-stroke/](http://www.thennt.com/nnt/aspirin-for-cardiovascular-prevention-after-prior-heart-attack-or-stroke/) [http://www.medicine.ox.ac.uk/bandolier/band38/b38-2.html](http://www.medicine.ox.ac.uk/bandolier/band38/b38-2.html)