An aspirin a day keeps the doctor…on hand?

Since heart disease is still considered to be the number one cause of death in the United States according to the Centers for Disease Control, finding ways to prevent it seems to be foremost on everyone’s mind. For years we’ve been told that low-dose aspirin therapy [an 81mg pill a day] is a good way to promote heart health. With aspirin being inexpensive and easy to get, it seems like good news…but wait, there’s more.

This article at Natural News suggests low-dose aspirin therapy for heart health may be doing more harm than good as this quote indicates:

According to the Journal of the American Medical Association (JAMA), an aspirin a day increases the risk for a hemorrhagic stroke by 84%!(6)

Contrarily, WebMD offers this information on aspirin therapy stating that it does actually reduce the risk of death and it also says aspirin can reduce the risk of stroke. So why does the Journal of the American Medical Association say differently? Even the Mayo Clinic apparently agrees that daily aspirin therapy helps lower the risk of heart attack and stroke.

So once again, the question is, who do we believe? Based on the articles I’ve read recently, aspirin therapy may be a good idea for someone who already has heart disease, but it may not benefit a healthy person as a preventive measure. Supermarkets and pharmacies of course have aspirin readily available and the pharmaceutical companies continue to put out the low-dose forms marketed to people who will pick up the drug on their own and self-medicate thinking they’re doing something good for themselves.

Is it any wonder medical costs are out of control in this country, when we’re encouraged to do something potentially bad for us in the name of being health conscious?

Have you tried aspirin therapy either on your own or on the advice of a doctor? Would you try it, even if you had no history of cardiovascular disease, as a form of prevention? In the past, I have to admit, I might have. It seems like an easy enough thing to do, but now, I’m not so sure. What do you think?