A daily dose of a “baby” 81-milligram aspirin is the most common prescription in American for ongoing heart health. But a baby aspirin a day does not always keep the heart doctor away. Here’s what you need to know about how much aspirin some people need to take, what kind to take, and when to take it.
Cardiologists prescribe aspirin to prevent formation of clots that can lead to heart attack, but researchers have found that about 50 per cent of people who take the 81-milligram dose of aspirin every day do not get the anti-clotting effect they need. Sometimes the dose simply is not high enough. Some people need the larger 325-milligram adult dose.
And sometimes the problem is the coating. The hard yellow coating you sometime see on baby aspirin is put there to prevent stomach irritation and ease digestion of the tablet. The problem is, digestion of the tablet is so limited that up to 65 per cent of adults who take coated tablets don’t benefit from them.
So what can you do? Taking vitamin C with aspirin limits irritation of the stomach and makes the hard yellow enteric coating unnecessary. If you can take vitamin C, and almost everybody can, chances are your stomach can tolerate an adult aspirin. A 250-milligram vitamin C capsule or tablet is enough.
And most people who take aspirin for heart protection will get better results if they wait until just before bedtime to take the pill. A study of people with mild high blood pressure found that taking their baby aspirin just before bedtime lowered systolic blood pressure (the first number) by an average 7 mm/Hg (points) over 3 months.
Your doctor will be able to tell you if you are getting the results you need to maintain heart-healthy levels of clotting factors. Be sure to ask if low-dose aspirin is really for you.
