I didn’t mean to imply that “you should do this now without telling your doctor”. You should certainly tell your doctor about all the medications you’re taking! I would even say that “ask your doctor immediately whether this is a good idea” is a reasonable approach(1), in contrast to the inexplicably indifferent tone of the article—although I’m sure the writer and editors have processed a zillion “observational study on a limited number of people for a limited amount of time indicates that X may have some influence on Y which ultimately leads to Z” articles, where the correct action in response really is to say “yes, that’s nice, tell me when you know more”.
The most significant caveat mentioned in the article was: “While Dr. Jacobs said the study design was valid, relatively few women were included in the trials, making it difficult to generalize the results to women.” I’m male, so that one didn’t apply to me. But look down a few paragraphs in the article: “who did an observational study several years ago reporting that women who had taken aspirin regularly had a lower risk of ovarian cancer”. Even if I were female (it must be frustrating to have studies commonly ignore the half of the population that you’re a member of(2)), I’d take the sum of this evidence as arguing in favor of starting low-dose aspirin.
What low dose is indicated?
“The specific dose of aspirin taken did not seem to matter — most trials gave out low doses of 75 to 100 milligrams”
As I recall from looking around the Internet, full-strength aspirin sizes vary around the world—in the US, Bayer sells 325mg pills, while I remember seeing that 300mg was common elsewhere. The low-dose aspirins also seem to vary as a consequence: 325⁄4 = 81.25, 300/4=75.
Although I would say that if you explain the study to your doctor, and they tell you that you shouldn’t do it, and they can’t explain why other than vague and unspecified risks, in the face of damn solid evidence—that you should get a new doctor.
On the other hand, it must be nice to have 5.2 additional years of life expectancy at birth. On the third hand, wow, I had forgotten that the difference was that large. On the fourth hand, some of that is due to men more commonly doing stupid things (like smoking) that I don’t do.
I didn’t mean to imply that “you should do this now without telling your doctor”. You should certainly tell your doctor about all the medications you’re taking! I would even say that “ask your doctor immediately whether this is a good idea” is a reasonable approach(1), in contrast to the inexplicably indifferent tone of the article—although I’m sure the writer and editors have processed a zillion “observational study on a limited number of people for a limited amount of time indicates that X may have some influence on Y which ultimately leads to Z” articles, where the correct action in response really is to say “yes, that’s nice, tell me when you know more”.
The most significant caveat mentioned in the article was: “While Dr. Jacobs said the study design was valid, relatively few women were included in the trials, making it difficult to generalize the results to women.” I’m male, so that one didn’t apply to me. But look down a few paragraphs in the article: “who did an observational study several years ago reporting that women who had taken aspirin regularly had a lower risk of ovarian cancer”. Even if I were female (it must be frustrating to have studies commonly ignore the half of the population that you’re a member of(2)), I’d take the sum of this evidence as arguing in favor of starting low-dose aspirin.
“The specific dose of aspirin taken did not seem to matter — most trials gave out low doses of 75 to 100 milligrams”
As I recall from looking around the Internet, full-strength aspirin sizes vary around the world—in the US, Bayer sells 325mg pills, while I remember seeing that 300mg was common elsewhere. The low-dose aspirins also seem to vary as a consequence: 325⁄4 = 81.25, 300/4=75.
Although I would say that if you explain the study to your doctor, and they tell you that you shouldn’t do it, and they can’t explain why other than vague and unspecified risks, in the face of damn solid evidence—that you should get a new doctor.
On the other hand, it must be nice to have 5.2 additional years of life expectancy at birth. On the third hand, wow, I had forgotten that the difference was that large. On the fourth hand, some of that is due to men more commonly doing stupid things (like smoking) that I don’t do.