A new study has indicated that people who take aspirin for many years, even of the low-dose variety, are threatened by higher risk of blindness.
The research conducted at the University of Sydney in Australia unraveled that regular aspirin use developed risk of neovascular AMD, or the “wet form” of age-related macular degeneration.
The team also found that the problem was not related to cardiovascular disease and smoking reported in some of the examined patients’ profile.
The findings have been achieved after four examinations of 2389 participants over a period of 15 years, according to the Journal of American Medicine (JAMA).
The researchers showed that 9.3% of patients taking aspirin developed wet age-related macular degeneration (AMD) compared with 3.7% of patients who did not use aspirin.
The study demonstrates that regular consumption of aspirin damages the 'sweet spot' in the retina, obscuring details in the centre of a patient's field of vision through increasing blood vessel growth behind the retina that can be led to retinal detachment.
As aspirin use has also been proven to have positive effects on heart attack prevention, cancer, Alzheimer’s disease and diabetes mellitus, the Macular Society stressed that “for patients at risk of cardio-vascular disease, the health risks of stopping or not prescribing aspirin are much higher than those of developing wet AMD.”
"The evidence is now accumulating about the association of aspirin and wet AMD, however, it is not overwhelming at this point,” the Society said.
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