Stroke risk

Daily Aspirin – Yes or No?

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Aspirin: FDA Says ‘No’ Others Say ‘Yes’.

I found this article quite helpful in my own decision regarding whether or not to continue my daily aspirin 81 mg dose.

The bump I gave myself on the shin a few weeks ago that bled profusely and took hours to clot was also quite helpful in my decision regarding whether or not to continue my daily aspirin 81 mg dose. 

Update 06.06.14

Check out the following link.  If you’re an older male you might find this of interest.

http://www.webmd.com/erectile-dysfunction/news/20110303/regular-use-of-painkillers-linked-to-ed

Update 07.26.14

This link takes you to the 2012 Circulation article.

Aspirin.

Update 08.04.14

More links for your reading and research pleasure.

Aspirin May Not Protect Against Cardiovascular Disease – Prevention.com.

Benefits of aspirin more modest than previously believed — St George’s, University of London.

Researchers from Professor Kausik Ray’s group at St George’s, University of London investigated the drug’s effectiveness in primary prevention and the prevalence of side effects. They also assessed if aspirin had any impact on the risk of death from cancer among people considered at risk of cardiovascular disease.

They analysed data from nine clinical trials involving over 100,000 participants without a history of cardiovascular disease. Half of the participants took aspirin and half took a placebo. The average participant in the aspirin arm of these trials took aspirin for about six years.

The researchers found that although aspirin in conventional daily or alternate day doses reduced the risk of total cardiovascular disease events by 10 per cent, this was largely due to a reduction in non-fatal heart attacks. It did not include a reduction in other cardiovascular disease events including death from heart attack, or fatal or non-fatal stroke.

The study also showed that this benefit was almost entirely offset by a 30 per cent increase in risk of life-threatening or debilitating internal bleeding events. This means that while one cardiovascular disease event was averted for every 120 people treated with aspirin for about six years, one in 73 people suffered from potentially significant bleeding during the same period.

Sleep Apnea Linked to Cancer

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Sleep Apnea Linked to Cancer.

Moderate-to-severe OSA was associated with a 2.5-fold higher likelihood of incident cancer (95% CI 1.2-5.0) after adjustment for obesity and a full range of other factors, Nathaniel Marshall, PhD, of the University of Sydney Nursing School in Australia, and colleagues found.

Cancer mortality was 3.4 times more common (95% CI 1.1-10.2) in those with sleep apnea than with no sleep apnea during 20 years of follow-up, they reported in the April 15 issue of theJournal of Clinical Sleep Medicine.

Testosterone Treatment Tied to Worse Cardiac Outcomes

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After adjustment for the presence of coronary artery disease, testosterone therapy was associated with a greater risk of all-cause mortality, myocardial infarction, and ischemic stroke 3 years after angiography (25.7% versus 19.9%; HR 1.29, 95% CI 1.04-1.58), according to P. Michael Ho, MD, PhD, of the Department of Veterans Affairs (VA) Eastern Colorado Health Care System in Denver, and colleagues.

via Testosterone Tx Tied to Worse Cardiac Outcomes.

How come the television commercials don’t tell you this information when they try to make you think you have a disease called Low T?

Annual prescriptions for testosterone increased more than five-fold from 2000 to 2011. In 2011, the total number of prescriptions numbered 5.3 million and make up a market of 1.6 billion, the authors wrote.

Never mind.

Stroke Numbers Up Worldwide

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In 2010, there were 16.9 million people who had a first stroke, 33 million stroke survivors, and 5.9 million people who died from a stroke — increases of 68%, 84%, and 26% respectively since 1990, according to Valery Feigin, MD, of the Auckland University of Technology in New Zealand, and colleagues.

Stroke mortality rates fell significantly in both groups of countries: by 37% in high-income countries and by 20% in low- and middle-income countries.

via Stroke Numbers Up Worldwide.

Afib Linked to Silent Stroke

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MRI indicated silent cerebral ischemia lesions in 89% patients with paroxysmal Afib and 92% with persistent Afib compared with 46% of controls, which wasn’t significantly different between the two types of Afib but was for both versus controls (P<0.01).

The number of these lesions averaged 41 in persistent Afib, 33 in paroxysmal Afib, and 12 in controls, which was significantly different for all three groups.

The high prevalence of these lesions in the control group compared with what has been reported in the general population may have reflected the moderate to high cardiovascular risk among these patients referred for cardiovascular prevention or treatment, the researchers suggested.

The lesions can have either ischemic and embolic origins, but the peculiar “spotted” distribution of “small sharply demarcated lesions, often in cluster, with bilateral distribution, prevalently in the frontal lobe” seen in 50% and 67% of the paroxysmal and persistent Afib patients, respectively, strongly supported an embolic mechanism, they noted.

via Afib Linked to Silent Stroke.

If these findings are replicated in future studies, the question for underwriters is should any Afib risk be Standard mortality?