Aspirine tegen astma?*
Uit een epidemiologische studie met data vanuit 1982, onder ruim 22.000 artsen blijkt dat dagelijks een dosis van 325 mg aspirine de kans op astma met 22% doet verminderen. Omdat het een epidemiologische studie betreft is niet vastgesteld waarom en vermoedt wordt dat de ontstekingsremmende werking van aspirine de oorzaak is. Omdat aspirine vaak genomen wordt ter voorkoming van hartproblemen lijkt dit extra voordeel leuk meegenomen.
Can Aspirin Prevent Asthma?
Can taking an aspirin each day stop asthma from developing in adults?
Maybe,
suggests new research
published in the American Journal of Respiratory and Critical Care Medicine
that found adult-onset asthma risk was reduced by 22 percent in men who were
already taking a daily aspirin for heart-disease prevention.
"Our
findings suggest that low-dose aspirin may have beneficial effects on asthma,"
said study co-author Dr. Tobias Kurth, an assistant professor of medicine and an
associate epidemiologist in the division of aging at Brigham and Women's
Hospital in Boston.
But,
Kurth added, it's too soon to recommend that anyone start using daily aspirin
solely for asthma prevention.
As
many as 20 million Americans have asthma, according to the American Academy of
Allergy, Asthma and Immunology (AAAAI). Despite advances in treatment, about
5,000 people die due to asthma every year in the United States, the AAAAI
reports.
The
incidence of asthma has been rising in recent years, according to background
information in the study. And that rise coincides with the decreased use of
aspirin as people have switched to other over-the-counter pain relievers, or
avoided aspirin use in children due to concerns about Reyes syndrome. That led
some researchers to wonder if the reduction in aspirin use was contributing to
the rise of asthma.
To
test that hypothesis, Kurth and his colleagues reviewed data from the Physicians'
Health Study, which began in 1982. They included data from 22,071 male
physicians between the ages of 40 and 84. The physicians were randomly assigned
to receive either a daily dose of 325 milligrams of aspirin or a placebo. The
original aim of the research was to study aspirin's role in heart-disease
prevention.
During
the five-year study period, 113 new cases of asthma were diagnosed in the
11,037-member aspirin group, compared with 145 in the placebo group. This
represented a 22 percent decrease in the risk of developing asthma for those
taking low-dose aspirin.
Kurth
said the researchers weren't able to study the reasons why aspirin might have
this preventive effect against asthma, but theorized that aspirin's
anti-inflammatory effects might play a role.
He
did caution, however, that for some people who already have asthma, aspirin can
be an irritant that can actually trigger asthma symptoms.
"This
is a complex issue and is more of a study for the research community," said
Kurth. The question for researchers now, he said, is "for those at risk of
getting asthma, should they be treated with aspirin or not?"
Dr.
Rick Vinuya, an allergist and immunologist at Providence Hospital and Medical
Center in Southfield, Mich., echoed Kurth's comments.
"Any
time you have an intervention to prevent the onset of disease, it's exciting,
and a 22 percent reduction in risk is huge. But, that excitement is tempered
because this is not a cause-and-effect study, but an epidemiological one. This
study needs to be followed up with a study specifically designed to answer
whether aspirin really does have an affect and how does it work?"
Right
now, Vinuya said, no one should start taking aspirin to prevent asthma. "This
study adds on to the beneficial effects of aspirin. It's a healthy practice to
take aspirin to prevent heart attacks and now it looks as if a secondary benefit
is a possible decrease in the development of asthma. But, asthma prevention
can't be the primary reason for taking daily aspirin," he said.
(Maart 2007)