Month: May 2012

Taking calcium pills to strengthen bones may increase your risk of a heart attack, a new study suggests. Researchers looked at information from questionnaires filled out by people in a long-running health study. About 24,000 people were involved. They were ages 35 to 64 when the study began. In the next 11 years, 354 people had heart attacks. The heart attack rate was 86% higher in people who took calcium pills than in those who did not take them. Taking calcium did not affect the rate of stroke or heart- and stroke-related death. The study appeared in the journal Heart. USA Today wrote about it May 24.

Taking aspirin for an extended time after a blood clot in the leg or arm may help prevent repeat clots, a new study suggests. The study included 402 people who had a recent deep vein thrombosis. This is a clot in a deep vein of a leg or arm. Such clots can travel to the lungs or brain. This can cause breathing problems, stroke or death. People in the study were given usual treatment with blood thinners for several months. Then they were randomly divided into 2 groups. One group took a low-dose aspirin daily. The other group took identical placebo (fake) pills. In the next 2 years, 6.6% of those taking aspirin and 11.2% of those taking the placebo had repeat blood clots. One person in each group had a problem with excess bleeding. The New England Journal of Medicine published the study. HealthDay News wrote about it May 23.