The aspirin mistake: 29 million take it daily, not realizing costs outweigh benefits
BY Lindsey Leake
The decades-old medical advice that an aspirin a day keeps a heart attack away is outdated. Yet about half of U.S. adults are unaware that the consensus has changed for healthy older people not at increased risk of heart disease, a new survey says, a misconception that could be putting them in danger.
Nearly one in two respondents (48%) wrongly said that the benefits of taking low-dose aspirin daily to lower one’s odds of having a stroke or heart attack outweigh the risks, according to a survey published Feb. 3 by the Annenberg Public Policy Center (APPC) at the University of Pennsylvania. Another 39% of the more than 1,700 respondents were unsure; just 13% correctly indicated that the risks are now thought to prevail over the benefits.
