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Stopping Aspirin Intake Raises Risks of Heart Attack

Doctors commonly prescribe daily low-dose aspirin after a heart attack to reduce the risk of having a second cardiovascular event. (Reuters)
Doctors commonly prescribe daily low-dose aspirin after a heart attack to reduce the risk of having a second cardiovascular event. (Reuters)
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Stopping Aspirin Intake Raises Risks of Heart Attack

Doctors commonly prescribe daily low-dose aspirin after a heart attack to reduce the risk of having a second cardiovascular event. (Reuters)
Doctors commonly prescribe daily low-dose aspirin after a heart attack to reduce the risk of having a second cardiovascular event. (Reuters)

Doctors commonly prescribe daily low-dose aspirin after a heart attack to reduce the risk of having a second cardiovascular event.

About one in six patients however stop taking their aspirin within three years, a Swedish study found. It warned against stopping the low dose of aspirin, because it raises the risk of heart attack or stroke by nearly 40 percent.

Lead author of the study Dr. Johan Sundstrom told Reuters Health that low-dose aspirin makes the platelets in the blood less likely to form clots. This is especially useful in the coronary or carotid arteries, where blood clots may lead to myocardial infarctions and strokes.

Sundstrom, an epidemiologist at Uppsala University added that millions of patients worldwide take aspirin on a daily basis and might consider stopping at some time during their life.

“We performed this study to help physicians and patients to make an informed decision whether or not to stop aspirin use,” he explained.

To see if risk rises after a patient stops aspirin therapy, Sundstrom’s team used nationwide medical and death registries to identify patients over age 40 taking low-dose aspirin. In Sweden, low-dose aspirin is available only by prescription, so the researchers were also able to see who continued filling their prescriptions between 2005 and 2009.

The researchers analyzed records for 601,527 patients, who were cancer-free and had taken at least 80 percent of their prescribed aspirin doses during the first year of treatment. After excluding a small proportion of patients whose medical records showed a reason for stopping aspirin, such as surgery or a case of severe bleeding, they found that about 15 percent of the full group had stopped taking their aspirin after about three years.

At the end of the study period, there were a total of 62,690 cardiovascular events, defined as hospitalization for a heart attack or stroke, or cardiovascular death.

The study lead author said patients who discontinued aspirin had a 37 percent higher rate of cardiovascular events than those who continued. That translates to one extra cardiovascular event each year among every 74 patients who stopped taking aspirin.

The risk increased shortly after discontinuation, and did not appear to diminish over time, he added.

“Adherence to low-dose aspirin treatment in the absence of major surgery or bleeding is likely an important treatment goal,” stressed Sundstrom.

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SpaceX's Private Fram2 Crew Returns to Earth after Polar-orbiting Mission

SpaceX's Falcon 9 rocket is launched, carrying four commercial astronauts into a 90-degree inclination polar orbit on the Fram2 mission at the Kennedy Space Center in Cape Canaveral, Florida, US, March 31, 2025. REUTERS/Joe Skipper/File Photo
SpaceX's Falcon 9 rocket is launched, carrying four commercial astronauts into a 90-degree inclination polar orbit on the Fram2 mission at the Kennedy Space Center in Cape Canaveral, Florida, US, March 31, 2025. REUTERS/Joe Skipper/File Photo
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SpaceX's Private Fram2 Crew Returns to Earth after Polar-orbiting Mission

SpaceX's Falcon 9 rocket is launched, carrying four commercial astronauts into a 90-degree inclination polar orbit on the Fram2 mission at the Kennedy Space Center in Cape Canaveral, Florida, US, March 31, 2025. REUTERS/Joe Skipper/File Photo
SpaceX's Falcon 9 rocket is launched, carrying four commercial astronauts into a 90-degree inclination polar orbit on the Fram2 mission at the Kennedy Space Center in Cape Canaveral, Florida, US, March 31, 2025. REUTERS/Joe Skipper/File Photo

Four private astronauts returned to Earth in a SpaceX capsule after roughly four days orbiting the planet in a novel polar trajectory, walking out of their spacecraft with little assistance to cap off the Elon Musk-led company's sixth fully private space mission.

Since launching Monday night from Florida, the four-person crew, led by and paid for by Maltese investor Chun Wang, traveled in a circular orbit around Earth from pole to pole, passing over the icy masses every 40 or so minutes in a particular orbit that no humans have flown before.

During the mission, they conducted 22 research experiments largely focused on how the human body changes in microgravity.

The four-person crew included three of Wang's friends and associates: Norwegian film director Jannicke Mikkelsen, German robotics researcher and polar scientist Rabea Rogge, and Australian adventurer Eric Philips, Reuters reported.

Their Crew Dragon capsule had tightened its orbit around Earth Friday morning and splashed down hours later off the coast of California around noon EDT (1600 GMT), before the gumdrop-shaped spacecraft was hoisted out of the water by a SpaceX vessel and scooted under a shaded platform onboard.

As a final experiment, the crew exited Dragon without the delicate assistance from medical and support teams that astronauts usually receive upon returning to Earth. No stretchers rolled them out of the capsule, to demonstrate how well astronauts could walk off a spacecraft on the moon or Mars.

Spaceflight, particularly on missions much longer than the Fram2 flight, is known to reduce bone density and muscle mass, among other bodily effects that have been studied for decades by NASA with its own astronauts on the International Space Station.

Each crew member on Friday slowly crawled out of Dragon one by one, their flexibility seemingly constrained only by their flight suits, before standing upright with smiles.

'Went to bed, felt good. Laying down on a bed for the first time in nine months was pretty awesome.

"All four framonauts have safely exited Dragon unassisted," SpaceX said, referring to the crew.

SpaceX and its Dragon craft have dominated the nascent market for private orbital spaceflight, an area in which a key source of demand originally came from a small field of wealthy tourists. Dragon is the world's only privately built capsule routinely flying missions in orbit. Rival Boeing's (BA.N), opens new tab Starliner capsule has been held up in development.

In recent years, with Dragon flights costing roughly $55 million per seat, the spaceflight market - involving companies such as Axiom Space that contract Crew Dragon missions - has fixated more on astronauts from governments willing to pay the sum mainly for national prestige and bolstering domestic spaceflight experience.