In The News This Week … Mar. 6–12, 2005: Some Noted Differences

Aspirin for Women

First, from the start of the week: An article published online on March 7, 2005, in The New England Journal of Medicine looked at the efficacy of low-dose aspirin therapy for women. Research has already shown that low-dose aspirin reduces the risk of first MI in men – but what about women?

A group of 39,875 initially healthy women, aged 45 years and older, took 100mg of aspirin or a placebo and then were monitored for 10 years. Researchers found no significant reduction in risk of MI or other cardiovascular events for the aspirin group. The good news is that the aspirin group was less likely to have a stroke – but the bad news is the aspirin group was also 40% more lively to develop GI bleeds requiring a transfusion! But more good news: in doing a subgroup analysis, researchers found "aspirin significantly reduced the risk of major cardiovascular events, ischemic stroke, and myocardial infarction among women 65 years of age or older."

"Black-White Standardized Mortality Ratios"

The March/April 2005 issue of the journal Health Affairs has devoted most of its space to looking at racial and ethnic disparities in health and healthcare in the United States. One study, What If We Were Equal? A Comparison Of The Black-White Mortality Gap In 1960 And 2000 found that the black-white gap worsened for infants and men aged 35 and older, but improved for women. Particularly, the study found that an estimated 83,570 deaths could be prevented each year if the gap was eliminated.

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