BOCA RATON, Fla. – Researchers are challenging recent guideline changes regarding who should take a daily aspirin to avoid a first heart attack.
A government panel recommended restricting preventive aspirin use in people under 70, and more recently the panel dropped that to people under 60.
Dr. Charles Hennekens with Florida Atlantic University’s Schmidt College of Medicine said generalized age parameters for aspirin use are faulty, especially since the risk of heart attacks and strokes increases with age.
“My colleagues and I feel that the data that we’ve analyzed strongly supports our belief that the decision about whether to use aspirin to prevent a first heart attack or stroke should be an individual judgment by the healthcare provider and each of his or her patients,” he said.
Hennekens, who was the first to discover that aspirin prevents a first heart attack in men and stroke in women, says the key to proper aspirin use is weighing the patient’s risk of developing a blood clot versus the side effects from taking aspirin daily.
According to the CDC, more than 859,000 Americans die of heart attacks or stroke every year, which account for more than 1-in-3 of all U.S. deaths.
COVID and diabetes
And new CDC data finds that children who test positive for COVID-19 may have an increased risk for both Type-1 and Type-2 diabetes.
While the exact connection isn’t known, researchers suggest it could be linked to how the virus attacks pancreatic cells.
The findings didn’t come as a surprise as several other studies have shown an association between COVID-19 and diabetes in adults.