You might want to put down that aspirin.
Millions of Americans are told to take that pill daily — or similar medications, such as statins or blood-pressure regulators — to help manage their cardiovascular disease and stroke risk.
But a new Stanford study found that those medications may have been incorrectly prescribed all along.
According to the study, doctors determine their patients’ heart attack or stroke risk by asking them a routine set of questions, called pooled cohort equations, during checkups.
Sanjay Basu, a professor of primary care at Stanford and co-author of the study, says these questions are based on data derived from people who were 30 to 62 years old — in 1948.
“A lot has changed in terms of diets, environments and medical treatment since the 1940s,” Basu writes in a press release. “So, relying on our grandparents’ data to make our treatment choices is probably not the best idea.”
Basu says that using the outdated info may mean that patients are being over- or undermedicated.
For example, Basu notes, white Americans’ risk factors may be overestimated by 20 percent based on this data set, meaning that they’re likely taking more meds than they need.
On the flip side, these circa-1940s numbers didn’t include a large sample of black Americans, so physicians may be underestimating their risks for heart attacks and strokes.
As a result, Basu says, “African-Americans may have been given false reassurance [from their doctors], and probably need to start treatment given our findings.”
To rectify this, the study’s researchers are updating the equations with newer data to “improve the accuracy of cardiovascular risk estimates.”
The National Institutes of Health, which oversees and distributes these data for research purposes, has approved these new equations but the study doesn’t specify when they will be put into effect.