Monday, January 28, 2013

Aspirin Therapy May Increase Age-related Blindness


Aspirin therapy is an effective tool to decrease the risk of stroke and heart attack. But it may increase the risk of developing macular degeneration, the most common cause of blindness in adults older than 55, according to an Australian study.

The findings have been published in JAMA Internal Medicine, formerly the Archives of Internal Medicine. Researchers from the University of Sydney did not find that aspirin "causes" the condition, but noted an association between regularly taking aspirin and the more severe form of the vision-robbing disease, "wet" age-related macular degeneration. That association held true even when they controlled for smoking and other heart disease risks. They also found that risk rose the more aspirin a person took regularly.

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