Word: aspirins
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...Neither aspirin nor vitamin E turns out to be the miracle drug everyone hoped for. Two reports last week from the Women's Health Study (WHS)--a scientifically rigorous trial that followed 40,000 healthy middle-aged women over 10 years--showed that regular use does not, for the most part, prevent cancer or heart disease. Here's what you need to know...
...Doesn't aspirin help prevent heart attacks...
...certain people. Healthy women ages 65 and older and men 40 and older benefit from a daily baby aspirin (81 mg). It also lessens the risk of a second heart attack. But the WHS showed no significant heart benefit for most healthy middle-aged women...
First, the number of data points is limited, with just 17 variables to choose from. Some of the measures are easy to understand, such as the percentage of heart-attack patients who are given an aspirin when they first arrive at the hospital. Others are a little more obscure, such as the number of pneumonia patients "given initial antibiotic timing," which turns out to mean they got antibiotics within four hours of arrival...
There are no death rates, however, and some of the results seem to reflect sloppy paperwork more than anything else (e.g., did a doctor remember to record the aspirin given in the ambulance?). No doubt such mix-ups will soon sort themselves out. But one wonders whether publishing these data could have the unintended consequence of requiring medical staff to spend more time on documentation and less on treatment. Still, the possibility of improving the quality of health care--and perhaps cutting medical costs as well--seems worth the risk...