Tuesday, April 10, 2007

Aspirin underutilized for heart attack prevention

Tue Apr 10, 2007 12:42PM EDT
By Megan Rauscher
NEW YORK (Reuters Health) - Although it's well known that taking aspirin regularly can lower a person's risk of heart disease, few Americans, it seems, use the common pain reliever for heart health.
A new study finds that use of aspirin for the prevention of a first or second heart attack or stroke is very low, even among adults at increased risk for such events.
Among a nationally representative sample of 1,299 Americans aged 40 or older, overall only 41 percent reported regular aspirin use for cardiovascular prevention.
Only 57 percent of people considered at increased risk for cardiovascular events said they took aspirin regularly.
"Even for those with a known history of cardiovascular disease, aspirin use was only 69 percent," according to a report on the survey in the May issue of the American Journal of Preventive Medicine.

http://www.reuters.com/article/healthNews/idUSCOL05954420070410?feedType=RSS

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