‘Safe’ low-dose aspirin still causes serious stomach bleeding

There’s no such thing as a safe low dose of aspirin.  Major stomach bleeding and ulcers can be caused at even the lowest dose of just 75 mg a day, researchers have found.
The problem is magnified if you are also taking another medication with the aspirin, such as a heart drug or an anticoagulant, say researchers from University Hospital Lozano Blesa in Zaragoza, Spain.
Doctors had assumed that gastro-intestinal problems didn’t occur with low-dose aspirin – usually between 75mg and 325 mg – but the new study has discovered that “major” bleeding can be triggered even by the very lowest dose.
Taking a proton pump inhibitor that lowers stomach acid seems to counter aspirin’s GI effects, but, as WDDTY revealed last week, the combination of the two drugs causes serious damage to the small intestine.
(Source: Clinical Gastroenterology and Hepatology, 2011; 9: 762).