Aspirin, in doses of less than 75 to 81 mg/d, can reduce the incidence of cardiovascular events. The U.S. Preventive Services Task Force 'strongly recommends that clinicians discuss aspirin chemoprevention with adults who are at increased risk for coronary artery disease'.
The Task Force defines increased risk as 'Men older than 40 years of age, postmenopausal women, and younger persons with risk factors for coronary artery disease (for example, hypertension, diabetes, or smoking) are at increased risk for heart disease and may wish to consider aspirin therapy'. More specifically, high-risk persons are 'those with a 5-year risk ≥ 3%'. A risk calculator is available.
Regarding healthy women, the more recent Women's Health Study randomized controlled trial found insignificant benefit from aspirin in the reduction of cardiac events; however there was a significant reduction in stroke. Subgroup analysis showed that all benefit was confined to women over 65 years old.
Further Reading
This article is licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike License.
It uses material from the Wikipedia article on
"Coronary artery disease"
All material adapted used from Wikipedia is available under the terms of the
Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike License.
Wikipedia® itself is a registered trademark of the Wikimedia Foundation, Inc.