Daily Aspirin Use Linked to 5 Times Increased Risk of Crohn’s Disease

A number of healthy people are taking a low dose aspirin on a daily basis as a preventive for heart disease, though it’s value has been disproven as recently was reported on the NHS website. Previous research work on tissue samples has shown that aspirin can have a harmful effect on the bowel and there is a reported risk of dangerous internal bleeding, though no beneficial effect on reducing the incidence of heart attacks or strokes, on doses of 100mg aspirin daily.

These are healthy people taking what they believe is valuable preventive action but it almost doubles the risk of dangerous internal bleeding compared to dummy pills (placebo), and if you are taking daily aspirin for a higher vascular risk then consult your doctor before stopping taking it, but there is now also a new risk associated with it, particularly if you have been doing so for over a year.

According to a new study led by Dr Andrew Hart at the University of East Anglia, in conjunction with 200,000 volunteers from the UK Sweden Denmark Germany and Italy, and are are they found that those taking aspirin regularly for a year or more were around five times more likely to develop Crohn’s disease. Further, the study also showed that aspirin use had no effect on the risk of developing ulcerative colitis — a condition similar to Crohn’s disease.

Crohn’s disease is a serious condition affecting 60,000 people in the UK that is characterized by inflammation and swelling of any part of the digestive system. This can lead to debilitating symptoms and requires patients to take life-long medication. Some patients need surgery and some sufferers have an increased risk of bowel cancer.

Although this may seem a rather frightening link, the actual numbers of people contracting Crohn’s disease remains very low — only one in every 2000 users and further research is being carried out, particularly in relation to other potential causal factors including diet.