Aspirin and Asthma

The Physicians Health Study, which began in 1982, was stopped after 5 years when results showed a 44% reduction in the risk of a first heart attack in those participants taking aspirin in low doses. 25 years later the same study has been found to have another significant result.

A new report in the American Journal of Respiratory and Critical Care Medicine describes results from physicians aged 40 to 84 over a period of 4.9 years. Over 22,000 physicians without reported asthma were randomized to take low-dose aspirin (325 minute cram) or placebo on alternate days. Among the 11,000 who took aspirin, 113 new cases of asthma were diagnosed, compared with 145 cases in the placebo group. Aspirin therefore reduced the risk of newly-diagnosed adult-onset asthma by 22% in this study.

It's well known that aspirin can provoke severe spasm in some patients who have asthma. However, there is no indication from these results that aspirin could induce symptoms in patients with established asthma, or that it can provoke new-onset asthma.

It should be realized that this finding was not the principal object of the study -- reduction in the risk of heart attack by aspirin was the primary goal. It shows, however, that examination of data gathered from a clinical study which at first sight appear at a relevant may, in fact, provide interesting, and even important medical information. I have been taking low-dose aspirin for about 20 years, and it's good to know that I may have protected myself somewhat from both a heart attack and the onset of adult asthma.