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A28 SCIENCE
Thursday 25 July 2019

Study: Millions should stop taking aspirin for heart health

By LAURAN NEERGAARD edly more digestive-tract
AP Medical Writer bleeding, along with some
WASHINGTON (AP) — Mil- other side effects. .
lions of people who take In March, those findings
aspirin to prevent a heart prompted a change in
attack may need to rethink guidelines from the Ameri-
the pill-popping, Harvard can Heart Association and
researchers reported Mon- American College of Car-
day. diology:
A daily low-dose aspirin is —People over 70 who
recommended for people don’t have heart disease
who have already had a — or are younger but at in-
heart attack or stroke and creased risk of bleeding —
for those diagnosed with should avoid daily aspirin
heart disease. for prevention.
But for the otherwise —Only certain 40- to
healthy, that advice has 70-year-olds who don’t al-
been overturned. Guide- ready have heart disease
lines released this year are at high enough risk to
ruled out routine aspirin use warrant 75 to 100 milligrams
for many older adults who of aspirin daily, and that’s
don’t already have heart for a doctor to decide.
disease — and said it’s only Nothing has changed for
for certain younger people This Thursday, Aug. 23, 2018 file photo shows an arrangement of aspirin pills in New York. A new heart attack survivors: Aspi-
under doctor’s orders. study suggests millions of people need to rethink their use of aspirin to prevent a heart attack. rin still is recommended for
How many people need to Associated Press them.
get that message? so on their own — a doctor fused about this,” said Dr. year, three surprising new But there’s no way to
Some 29 million people 40 never recommended it. Colin O’Brien, a senior in- studies challenged that know how many otherwise
and older were taking an And nearly half of people ternal medicine resident dogma. Those studies were healthy people got the
aspirin a day despite hav- over 70 who don’t have at Beth Israel who led the some of the largest and word about the changed
ing no known heart disease heart disease — estimated study. longest to test aspirin in recommendations.
in 2017, the latest data at about 10 million — were After all, for years doctors people at low and moder- “We hope that more pri-
available, according to a taking daily aspirin for pre- urged people to leverage ate risk of a heart attack, mary care doctors will talk
new study from Harvard vention, the researchers re- aspirin’s blood-thinning and found only marginal to their patients about aspi-
and Beth Israel Deaconess ported in Annals of Internal properties to lower the benefit if any, especially for rin use, and more patients
Medical Center. About 6.6 Medicine. chances of a first heart at- older adults. Yet the aspirin will raise this with their doc-
million of them were doing “Many patients are con- tack or stroke. Then last users experienced mark- tors,” O’Brien said.q

Eastern U.S. cities spewing more methane into air than thought

By SETH BORENSTEIN of Michigan atmospheric said Monday. The six cit- So scientists calculated that ing it “shows the problem is
WASHINGTON (AP) — scientist Eric Kort. Scientists ies spewed nearly 937,000 nine times as much natural widespread.”
Older U.S. east coast cit- flew a National Oceanic tons of methane (850,000 gas was being released as Methane traps about 30
ies are leaking nine times and Atmospheric Adminis- metric tons), which is more EPA had estimated. times more heat than car-
as much natural gas into tration airplane over New than twice what the U.S. Previous studies had looked bon dioxide, but doesn’t
the air — from homes or York City, Washington, Phil- Environmental Protection at individual cities using dif- last nearly as long. By show-
pipes heading into houses adelphia, Boston, Baltimore Agency estimates, accord- ferent methods. This study is ing that leaks are a big is-
— than the federal govern- and Providence, Rhode Is- ing to the study in the jour- the first to give a compre- sue, the study “represents
ment had thought, a new land, for 1,200 hours in 2018 nal Geophysical Research hensive look over a large a huge opportunity to
airborne monitoring study and found lots more meth- Letters. area. get some early gains on
finds. ane. They couldn’t tell if the Methane comes from dif- Cornell University’s Robert controlling greenhouse
It’s probably not a safety methane, a potent green- ferent places, not just natu- Howarth, who wasn’t part gas emissions,” Sweeney
problem because what’s house gas, was leaking ral gas, and that’s where of the study, praised it, say- said.q
coming out doesn’t reach from inside homes or the the study found the big-
explosive concentrations, pipes leading to homes. gest change from what the
but the extra methane “You have a very leaky government had previously
heading into the air is a system,” study co-author thought.
climate change issue, said Colm Sweeney, a NOAA The EPA’s estimates had
study co-author University atmospheric scientist, figured much of the meth-
ane coming out of the
five cities spewed from
landfills and wetlands, not
natural gas for home use.
But the airplane monitors,
which could differentiate
between landfill gas and
natural gas based on oth-
er chemicals that come
out, found that 88% of the
methane was natural gas,
except in Providence.