Aspirin Therapy Found to Treat the Sexes Differently

阿司匹林治疗应根据性别差异采用不同方法

For years, doctors have been advising many patients to take a daily, low-dose aspirin to protect against heart attack and stroke. The advice was based on extensive studies. But although doctors were suggesting the aspirin regimen to both men and women, the aspirin research had been done mainly on men.

That changed this month with the release of a 10-year study of 40,000 women and how they respond to aspirin therapy.

The new research, led by Dr. Julie Buring, found that women do benefit from aspirin, but in different ways than men.

Dr. Julie Buring: For example, aspirin in what's called 'primary prevention among apparently healthy people' does work on cardiovascular disease for both men and women. But for men it reduces the risk of a heart attack, and for women it appears to reduce the risk of stroke.

In a VOA interview, Dr. Buring, who is an epidemiologist at Brigham and Women's Hospital in Boston, explained that these differences in aspirin's effectiveness reflect the fact that heart disease itself affects men and women differently.

Dr. Julie Buring: We know that men and women do differ. A man gets heart disease about 15 years earlier than a woman does. So it should be of no surprise that an agent such as aspirin might really have a different effect or a different risk-to-benefit ratio.

And there are risks involved in using aspirin, even a dose as small as 100 milligrams every other day, as in this study. Aspirin is a powerful drug, which helps prevent blood clots from forming. That's why it can help prevent or even treat some cardiovascular events. But there is a downside, too. Aspirin increases the risk of bleeding in the stomach or brain, and it may interact with other medicines.

Dr. Buring points out that although there are differences between men and women, there are also similarities in how the two sexes respond to aspirin. Take the group known as "survivors of a prior event."

Dr. Julie Buring: They've had a heart attack or a stroke. For those people, whether you are a man or a woman, aspirin has been clearly shown to reduce the risk of dying of that event or having another event.

Commenting on the findings, cardiologist and women's health advocate Nieca Goldberg stressed the importance of aspirin for women who have certain risk factors.

Nieca Goldberg: For instance, women who have diabetes or a family history of heart disease. Women who have already had a heart attack or heart surgery should be on an aspirin a day, and we know from other studies [that] these women who are at high risk for heart disease aren't getting the aspirin.

Dr. Goldberg who appeared on NBC Television’s Today Show, is head of cardiac rehabilitation at New York's Lenox Hill Hospital.

There are several reasons why previous studies on heart disease focused on men - bias in the male-dominated research community may have been a factor. But study author Julie Buring allowed that it's also true that, at a given age, men are more likely to have a heart attack.

Julie Buring: The studies that were done first were among men, because at any given age men have a higher risk of having a heart attack than women do. But that also meant that the recommendations that were made for women were made on the basis primarily of data in men.

As the massive Women's Health Study indicates, that is finally changing.

The head of the U.S. National Heart Lung and Blood Institute, Dr. Elizabeth Nabel, said in a written statement that many women, especially those over age 65, will benefit from taking a low-dose aspirin every other day. But she stressed the importance of checking with your doctor first.

The study on women and aspirin is being published in the New England Journal of Medicine. Dr. Buring announced the findings this week at the American College of Cardiology.

I am Art Chimes in Washington.

注释：

low-dose 低计量的

heart attack 心脏病发作

regimen [5redVimen] n. 规律用药

cardiovascular [7kB:diEu5vAskjulE] adj. 心脏血管的

epidemiologist [5epi9di:mi5ClEdVist] n. 流行病学家

effectiveness [i5fektivnis] n. 效力

milligram [5mili^rAm] n. 毫克

downside [5daun7said] n. 下降趋势

cardiologist [7kB:di5ClEdVist] n. 心脏病专家

cardiac [5kB:diAk] adj. 心脏的

rehabilitation [5ri:(h)E7bili5teiFEn] n. 复原

recommendation [7rekEmen5deiFEn] n. 介绍，建议