Heart Health

PATIENTS with a history of heart disease who stop taking prescribed aspirin are nearly two-thirds more likely to have a heart attack.
A study published online by the British Medical Journal found people who stopped taking low-dose aspirin to help prevent blood clots forming were at a 60% greater risk of a non-fatal heart attack.
Up to half of long-term users are believed to stop taking aspirin which they have been prescribed.
A team of researchers from Spain and Sweden examined data on 39,513 patients from The Health Improvement Network, a database of UK health records that includes data from Scotland.
The patients were aged between 50 and 84 and had been prescribed aspirin between 2000 and 2007. They were followed up for around three years.
The researchers found that, in the space of a year, for every 1000 patients there were four more non-fatal heart attacks among those who had recently stopped taking low-dose aspirin than those who had continued.
The team's results led to a call for more research into whether encouraging patients to keep taking low-dose aspirin would lead to a decrease in heart attacks.
Official figures show 19,641 people in Scotland have coronary heart disease, and 11,449 people suffered heart attacks in 2009/10