BMJ  2007;334 (12 May), doi:10.1136/bmj.39211.448623.3A

Editor's Choice

US editor's choice

Too much of many good things?

The first 150 words of the full text of this article appear below.

Drugs are great preventive medicine, especially if they are cheap. Why bother with fancy screening tests if we can write a prescription? Low dose aspirin, for example, costs a few pennies a day and can help prevent heart attacks and strokes in high-risk patients. But should we give it to older women to help prevent cognitive decline? Jae Kang and colleagues analyzed data on this question from a substudy of the huge US women's health study (doi: 10.1136/bmj.39166.597836.BE). They could not find evidence of overall cognition benefits in women 65 or over treated with 100 mg of aspirin every other day for up to 10 years.

In a related editorial, Lawrence Whalley and Donald Mowat point out that the study patients were largely healthy white women whose responses may not generalize to a more diverse population (doi: 10.1136/bmj.39204.473252.80). Also, the cognitive assessments were done over the telephone, which . . . [Full text of this article]

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