If you're 50 or over, a daily aspirin could significantly reduce your chances of having a heart attack or stroke. Health Editor Barry Nelson reports.

ASPIRIN has been hailed as a wonder drug since it was developed more than 100 years ago. The active ingredient in more than 50 over-the-counter medications, it has been found to be effective in pain relief, heart attacks, strokes, arthritis, diabetes, dementia and even pregnancy complications.

Now researchers in Wales are recommending that everyone aged 50 or over should take a daily aspirin to ward off heart attacks and strokes.

A 25-year study of 2,500 men in Wales found that the risk of heart attacks among the group was now so great that they concluded that all 50-year-olds, including women, should take aspirin daily.

Researchers at Cardiff University's College of Medicine found that eight out of ten men passed this risk threshold around the age of 50. Professor Peter Elwood, who led the study, called for aspirin to be more widely used to fight killer diseases affecting people later in life.

A daily dosage of one 75mg tablet - which could be obtained by a doctor's recommendation for less than 1p or bought for around 4p from a pharmacist - "could save tens of thousands of lives every year," says prof Elwood.

Aspirin was developed by German chemist Felix Hoffman in 1897 as a treatment for his father's arthritis. He succeeded in making a more palatable man-made version of a substance called salicin, the active ingredient in what was to become aspirin.

The powers of salicin were known about more than 2,000 years ago.

Hippocrates, the fifth century BC father of medicine, is said to have used ground willow bark (which contains salicin) to ease aches and pains.

By the late 19th century, a class of drugs based on salicin, called salicylates, had become the standard drug for the treatment of arthritis.

Hoffman's artificial version - dubbed aspirin - was less irritating to his father's delicate stomach and went into production in 1899.

Since then aspirin, or acetylsalicyclic acid, has been in constant use as a painkiller and as the world's first anti-inflammatory drug.

Apart from arthritis pain, aspirin was found to be useful to reduce pain in everything from headaches and migraines to toothache, sore throats and flu.

Aspirin works by reducing the sensitivity of the nerves both at the site of the pain and in the central nervous system. More modern drugs like paracetamol and ibuprofen work in a similar way, as do non-steroidal anti-inflammatory drugs.

Over the past 30 years, aspirin has been recognised as a very valuable low dosage way of reducing the risk of heart disease and strokes. It helps by thinning the blood, reducing the chance of clots forming.

Recently, increasing evidence has emerged that it can reduce the risk of some cancers and even slow the progress of Alzheimer's disease.

While aspirin has few reported side-effects and is seen as a very safe drug, it can cause stomach bleeding in around one in 500 patients.

Patients who are asthmatic also need to be cautious about using aspirin as it can make the condition worse.

Children should not be given adult aspirin because of fears of a rare condition called Reye's Syndrome. In all cases, patients are advised to consult their GP before self-medicating with aspirin.

* For more information about aspirin, go to www.aspirin-foundation.com