Lively Women

Are Men the Only Ones Who Benefit From Aspirin?

by Kristen King on October 27th, 2007

Although aspirin has long been lauded as effective preventive treatment against heart attacks, it may not be equally effective for men and women.

A new study from re­search­ers at St. Paul’s Hos­pi­tal in Van­cou­ver, Can­a­da, high­lights the in­flu­ence of gen­der. In­ves­ti­ga­tors ex­am­ined 23 pre­vi­ously pub­lished clin­i­cal tri­als, in­volv­ing more than 113,000 pa­tients, and an­a­lysed how the pro­por­tion of men to wom­en af­fect­ed the the out­comes.

“Tri­als that re­cruited pre­dom­i­nantly men dem­on­strat­ed the larg­est risk re­duc­tion in non-fatal heart at­tacks,” said Don Sin, one of the au­thors.

“The tri­als that con­tained pre­dom­i­nately wom­en failed to dem­on­strate a sig­nif­i­cant risk re­duc­tion in these non-fatal events. We found that a lot of the vari­abil­ity in these tri­als seems to be due to the gen­der ra­tios, sup­port­ing the the­o­ry that wom­en may be less re­spon­sive to as­pi­rin than men for heart pro­tec­tion.” *

Check with your doctor before beginning — or stopping — an aspirin regimen, and be sure to take other measures to reduce your risk of heart attack. Healthy diet, regular exercise, and healthy weight are critical factors.

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POSTED IN: Health, Heart Health, Women vs. men, Women's Issues