Aspirin today? You are not alone - and maybe Missouri could do better

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You know, aspirin is good for headaches, too.

I ran across some numbers the other day about aspirin use - high numbers of users who want to avoid stroke or heart disease.

Within the heart patients surveyed, a fairly tiny number take aspirin for pain relief. It is actually a pretty good non-steroid anti-inflammatory, too, if you can stomach it.

One down note for my current state of residence - Missouri. Read about this and from a story running down the numbers on aspirin's common use:

"Overall, 70.8 percent of adult respondents with existing [cardiovascular disease] reported using aspirin regularly (every day or every other day)," the researchers found.

Nearly 94 percent of regular low-dose aspirin (or baby aspirin) users with a history of heart problems said they take it for heart attack prevention.

Four out of five said they take it for stroke prevention, and 76 percent for both heart attack and stroke prevention, the study authors reported Thursday. The study was based on an analysis of data from the 2013 Behavioral Risk Factor Surveillance System.

Twenty states and the District of Columbia were included in the annual telephone survey.

Very few -- just 4 percent -- of these heart patients said they took aspirin for pain relief only, reported Dr. Jing Fang and colleagues at the CDC's National Center for Chronic Disease Prevention and Health Promotion.

By state, aspirin use ranged from 72 percent of people with a history of heart problems in Mississippi to 44 percent in Missouri, the report showed.

Of course, even if you think about taking a baby aspirin a day, check with your health provider first.

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