This is a good and important question. Heart disease remains the #1 killer of women so prevention is high on everyone’s list. This article serves to provide general information on the most recent guidelines.

In 2019 the American Heart Association (AHA) released the following recommendations:

“ For primary prevention, low dose aspirin should be considered in women aged 40-70 with a 10 year cardiovascular risk of 20% or more OR in women with diabetes and a 10 year cardiovascular risk of 10% or more. The risk of bleeding outweighs the benefits in low risk women and in women aged 70 and older.”

These recommendations come from the results of three large clinical trials.

So… should I take aspirin to prevent heart disease or not????? 

To answer this, there are three things to do:

1. Let’s figure out your 10 year “cardiovascular risk” percent. The American College of Cardiology website has an online calculator to estimate your 10 year cardiovascular event percent risk. Under “ASCVD Risk Esimator”, you will be asked questions about your blood pressure, cholesterol results, and diabetes history. This takes about one minute to complete and then your 10 year cardiovascular risk percent number result is given. Your provider can easily do this as well during your visit.
2. www.aspiringuide.com is another website from Brigham and Women’s Hospital that you can access, type in your information and a general recommendation to take or not take aspirin is provided.
3. Most importantly, discuss with your provider before starting or stopping aspirin. The long and short of this is that low dose aspirin is great for some and bad for others. With the help of these two calculations and a conversation with your provider, a confident decision can be made.

   This is a good and important question. Heart disease remains the #1 killer of women so prevention is high on everyone’s list. This article serves to provide general information on the most recent guidelines.

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