Many Americans Misguided On Daily Aspirin, Survey Finds

Many Americans don’t see anything wrong with taking daily low-dose aspirin, even though experts have concluded its risks outweigh its benefits, a new survey has found.

Nearly half (48%) of people incorrectly think that the benefits of taking low-dose aspirin daily to reduce the risk of heart attack or stroke outweigh the risks, according to the survey from the Annenberg Public Policy Center of the University of Pennsylvania.

“Habits backed by conventional wisdom and the past advice of health care providers are hard to break,” Kathleen Hall Jamieson, the center’s director, said in a news release.

“Knowing whether taking a low-dose aspirin daily is advisable or not for you is vital health information,” she added.

For years, healthy seniors were advised to take low-dose aspirin to reduce heart attack and stroke risk.

The rationale was that aspirin acts as a blood thinner, reducing the risk that a blood clot could cause a heart attack or stroke by clogging an artery.

But in 2019, the leading heart groups — the American College of Cardiology and the American Heart Association — reversed that recommendation in a set of new guidelines.

The groups concluded that daily aspirin for healthy seniors 70 and older wasn’t worth the risk of gastrointestinal bleeding.

“If you’re over 70, taking aspirin to prevent a first heart attack or stroke could do more harm than good,” the AHA now says on its website.

Aspirin still is recommended for people with diagnosed heart disease who don’t have an increased risk of bleeding.

This updated guidance has failed to break through decades of advice supporting daily low-dose aspirin, the poll found.

Nearly 1 in 5 U.S. adults who have no personal or family history of heart problems report routinely taking low-dose aspirin. According to survey results:

10% say they take it “basically every day.”
6% take it “a few times a month.”
2% take it “a few times a week.”

Younger adults were more likely than older folks to correctly report that the risks of aspirin outweigh the benefits, the survey showed.

About 29% of 18- to 29-year-olds with no personal or family history of heart disease correctly said the risks of daily aspirin outweigh benefits, compared with 11% of those 40 to 59 and 7% of those 60 and older, researchers found.

That’s likely because the younger folks haven’t been exposed as much to the outdated guidance supporting aspirin use, researchers said.

The survey involved 1,771 people polled Nov. 14 to 24, 2024, and has a margin of error of plus or minus 3.3 percentage points.

More information

The American Heart Association has more on low-dose aspirin.

SOURCE: Annenberg Public Policy Center, news release, Feb. 3, 2025

Source: HealthDay