From Your Health Journal…..”MedPage Today is one of the best kept secrets on the web, and I always try to bring traffic to their site. Recently, they had an excellent article about aspirin and age related vision loss. Many adults take a baby aspirin, as they have been told how it is helpful to preventing heart attack and strokes. But now, new reports have stated regular aspirin use was associated with an elevated risk for neovascular age-related macular degeneration. The researchers also considered whether other medications often taken by aspirin users, such as acetaminophen and beta-blockers, might influence risk, and the results were negative. It will be very interesting to read more about this in the future, as it affects many individuals who do take their baby aspirin every day. I encourage all of you to visit the MedPage Today web site (link provided below) to read the complete article. The author, Nancy Walsh did a fantastic job explaining these new findings. I have also posted a snip for the article below as well.”

From the article…..

Regular aspirin use was associated with an elevated risk for neovascular age-related macular degeneration, an Australian study suggested, but actual causality remains uncertain.

After adjustment for age, sex, and history of smoking, the odds ratio for macular degeneration in aspirin users was 2.37 (95% CI 1.25 to 4.49), according to Jie Jin Wang, PhD, of the University of Sydney, and colleagues.

With further adjustment for body mass index, systolic blood pressure, and history of cardiovascular disease (CVD), the association remained (OR 2.46, 95% CI 1.25 to 4.83), the researchers reported online in JAMA Internal Medicine.

However, “the evidence is insufficient to adjudicate the relationship between aspirin and [age-related macular degeneration], thereby challenging causal inferences,” Sanjay Kaul, MD, and George A. Diamond, MD, of Cedars-Sinai Medical Center in Los Angeles, wrote in an invited commentary.

A recent cross-sectional study suggested a possible link between neovascular age-related macular degeneration and routine aspirin use, but other studies have yielded conflicting findings.

To prospectively examine this potential link, Wang and colleagues analyzed data from the Blue Mountains Eye Study, which included 2,389 Australians ages 49 and older.

Retinal examinations were done every 5 years, and lesions classified as neovascular, or wet macular degeneration, or geographic atrophy, also known as dry macular degeneration.

Aspirin use was reported on a structured questionnaire, and information on relevant risk factors was obtained during physical examination and history reports.

According to the researchers, they did not collect information on aspirin dosage, but, they said, “most aspirin use in Australia is prescribed at 150 mg daily.”

To read the full article…..Click here