Men and women over a certain age should take aspirin daily to prevent heart attacks, experts say in Heart journal.

Nottingham and Sheffield universities' analysis of almost 12,000 patients found men from the age of 48 and women from 57 would benefit from the drug.

Heart attacks occur when a blood vessel is blocked by a clot, but aspirin makes it harder for blood clots to form.

The British Heart Foundation said more research was needed before "blanket prescribing" could be recommended.

We would encourage everyone to examine their own individual risk and take steps to reduce it by adjusting their lifestyle Dr Mike Knapton British Heart Foundation

Under existing recommendations, a GP will prescribe the drug if a person has already suffered a heart attack or a stroke.

It is also prescribed if factors such as high blood pressure put a patient at high risk of having such an "event" in the next few years.

But the researchers said, in reality, many people are not treated.

Some have speculated it may be easier to treat everyone over a specific age threshold such as 50 years.

Risks

An analysis of almost 12,000 patients aged between 30 and 75 showed that by the age of 47 in men and 58 in women, the 10-year coronary heart disease risk is 10% - a risk worth treating, the researchers said.

At that point, unless someone is at risk of dangerous side effects because they have a condition such as a stomach ulcer, the benefits outweigh the disadvantages, they concluded.

But this did not apply to people with diabetes or those at high risk of bleeding, the researchers said.

Although diabetics are likely to benefit from aspirin treatment because of their high heart disease risk, the evidence is not yet quite clear, they added.

And in anyone over the age of 75 years, the decision whether or not to take aspirin must be made on an individual basis, because they are more likely to suffer bleeding complications.

Study leader Dr Iskandar Idris, an honorary senior lecturer at Sheffield University, said routinely prescribing aspirin in these age groups was a feasible option.

But he added: "The final decision about use of aspirin must eventually be made after discussion with a healthcare provider."

Dr Mike Knapton, director of prevention and care at the British Heart Foundation, said: "Currently the recommendations in the UK are that aspirin is prescribed after a full risk assessment under medical supervision to those who have established cardiovascular disease.

"Further robust research is needed before aspirin should be considered as a blanket primary prevention measure in the UK.

"We would encourage everyone to examine their own individual risk and take steps to reduce it by adjusting their lifestyle."

Source:BBC News

A new understanding of the origins of brown fat cells — the "good" kind of fat that burns energy and keeps us warm — may lead to new treatments for obesity, two research teams reported on Wednesday.

Researchers at the Dana-Farber Cancer Institute in Boston said they used a single molecular switch to turn immature muscle cells into brown fat cells in the lab, suggesting that brown fat may be more akin to muscle cells than conventional white fat cells.

A second team from the Joslin Diabetes Center in Boston, found a protein important for bone growth helped promote the development of brown fat tissue in mice.

Both teams, reporting in the journal Nature, said their new findings lend understanding about the origins of brown fat, which releases energy, in contrast to conventional white fat, which stores energy.

A person who is obese has large stores of white fat, and researchers think if they can coax the body into making more calorie-burning brown fat, this might help people obese people lose weight.

Dana-Farber's Bruce Spiegelman, who worked on the research, said in a telephone interview that researchers have been trying to find the genes that turn brown fat cells on.

Spiegelman said his team previously found that PRDM16, a kind of genetic switch called a gene transcription factor, appears to regulate the development of brown fat cells.

"What we show in this paper is kind of a big shock. We show that brown fat is derived from a muscle-like cell, and that brown fat and white fat are completely different," he said.

When Spiegelman's team removed PRDM16 from immature brown fat cells in the lab, something strange happened.

"The dish filled up with muscle," Spiegelman said. "What it means is that muscle cells are precursor cells to brown fat cells."

Previously, his team also showed that PRDM16 could turn conventional white fat cells into brown fat cells, but Spiegelman thinks in living creatures, the muscle cell is a natural cell type that gives rise to brown fat cells.

His team is now looking for a drug that could chemically stimulate PRDM16 to make more brown fat cells, which would shift the metabolism into more of a fat-burning mode.

In a separate finding, a team led by Yu-Hua Tseng of the Joslin Diabetes Center found the protein BMP-7, known for inducing bone growth, can also promote the development of brown fat cells.

When Tseng's team delivered this protein into mice through a virus, the mice made more brown fat tissue.

And they found mice that developed extra brown fat tissue gained less weight than other mice, suggesting a potential use in weight loss.

The researchers were also able to get mice to develop extra brown fat cells by pre-treating immature brown fat cells with BMP-7 and transplanting them into the mice.

"We hope this study can be translated into applications to help treat or prevent obesity," Tseng said in a statement.

Source:Reuters