Regularly taking aspirin may slightly raise the likelihood of developing a degenerative eye condition, a new study found.
Though the increase in the risk of developing the disease, a rare form of macular degeneration, was slight, it may be a potential concern because about one in five adults nationwide take low doses of aspirin regularly, mostly to ward off heart disease. Some doctors have recently started recommending aspirin for the prevention of some types of cancer as well.
The new study, which was published in The Journal of the American Medical Association, found that routinely using aspirin doubled the odds of developing neovascular macular degeneration, the most severe form of the disease. Nonetheless, the condition is rare enough that the increase translated into a negligible risk, rising from about 1 in 200 among older Americans in general to roughly 1 in 100 among older aspirin users.
A major cause of blindness in people over the age of 50, macular degeneration is a disease of the retina that slowly blurs central vision, making it difficult to read or see fine detail. Neovascular macular degeneration accounts for about 10 percent of cases but causes most of the vision loss associated with the disease.
The authors of the new report were quick to point out that for most middle-aged and older adults, any potential concerns about visual decline would not be enough to outweigh the heart-healthy benefits of a daily aspirin. Instead, it should be something to keep in mind should any problems with eyesight start to arise, said Dr. Barbara Klein, the lead author of the study and a professor of ophthalmology and visual sciences at the University of Wisconsin, Madison.
?If you?re an aspirin user and your doctor put you on it for cardioprotective reasons, this is not a reason to stop it,? she said. ?It?s better to have blurry vision but still be here to complain about it than it is to die of a heart attack.?
Dr. Klein and her colleagues used data from the long-running Beaver Dam Eye Study, which has followed thousands of Wisconsinites since 1988. Participants in the study, who were all between the ages of 43 and 86, had checkups every five years in which they underwent eye exams and were asked to bring in any medications they were using. They were also checked for things that can influence the progression of eye disease, like high blood pressure, heavy alcohol use and diabetes. People who were taking aspirin at least twice a week for more than three months were characterized as regular users.
The study found that how long ago a person had started using aspirin routinely was strongly tied to the risk of macular degeneration. People who reported regularly taking aspirin 10 years before the eye exam had an increased risk of the disease, though it was not clear what the mechanism behind it might be.
?It may be like smoking and cancer, where some people who have stopped years and years ago then get cancer,? Dr. Klein said. ?It may seem out of the blue, but there?s something about latent exposure that carries forward.?
The new findings dovetail with those of a similar study published about a year ago. But in both cases the research was observational, so it could be that other, unknown factors account for the association between routine aspirin use and macular degeneration, said Dr. Robert Cykiert, an ophthalmologist at the New York University Langone Medical Center.
?I would say this brings up a question,? he said. ?But it by no means should serve as a warning to patients to stop taking aspirin.?
Source: http://well.blogs.nytimes.com/2012/12/18/aspirin-use-tied-to-eye-disorder/
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