Low-dose aspirin reduces risk of adults developing asthma
A 100mg dose of aspirin every other day reduces the relative risk of women developing adult-onset asthma, researchers reveal.
In a double-blind, placebo-controlled trial, 37,270 female healthcare
professionals, aged 45 years or over, with no apparent illness, previous
history of asthma or contraindication to aspirin, were randomly assigned
to receive either 100mg of aspirin or placebo on alternate days.
The
trial was part of a larger US study, the Women’s Health Study,
testing the risks and benefits of low-dose aspirin and vitamin E in the
primary prevention of cardiovascular disease and cancer.
During 10 years of follow-up the researchers found 872 new diagnoses
of asthma in the group given aspirin compared with 963 in the placebo
group. This corresponded to a hazard ratio of 0.90 (95 per cent confidence
interval 0.82 to 0.99; P=0.027), showing a 10 per cent reduction
in the relative risk of newly reported adult-onset asthma in those taking
aspirin.
The observed effect was not significantly modified by age, smoking
status, exercise levels, postmenopausal hormone intake or random assignment
to
vitamin E but no apparent effect was seen in obese women.
The researchers comment that although aspirin can acutely precipitate
bronchospasm in patients with aspirin-intolerant asthma, their “biologically
plausible finding … suggests a small benefit of aspirin for the prevention
of the development of asthma in adults”. A previous study in male
doctors showed that 325mg of aspirin every other day reduced the relative
risk of asthma by 20 per cent.
The researchers conclude that before public recommendations can be made,
results from randomised trials specifically designed to test whether
low-dose aspirin reduces the risk of asthma are needed. They add that
future studies also need to examine the currently unknown “precise
biological mechanism by which long-term low-dose aspirin use may reduce
the risk of asthma”.
The study is published
online ahead of appearing in Thorax. |
The
Pharmaceutical Journal
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