March 26 (Bloomberg) -- Women who take aspirin in low or moderate doses reduce their risk of dying from any cause, particularly heart disease, a study concluded.

Women in the study who took one to 14 aspirin a week reduced their risk of dying from heart disease by 38 percent and by 25 percent from all causes. The research, conducted by researchers at Massachusetts General Hospital and Harvard Medical School in Boston, was published today in the Archives of Internal Medicine.

The findings contradict previous research concluding that aspirin didn't prevent heart disease, John Baron, a doctor at Dartmouth Medical School, wrote in an editorial in the journal. Doctors in this study suggest aspirin may be beneficial as a preventive measure by protecting against inflammation, high blood glucose levels and damage to cells from oxygen exposure.

``Use of aspirin for one to five years was associated with significant reductions in cardiovascular mortality,'' Andrew T. Chan, lead author of the current study, said in a statement.

He said aspirin's overall benefits were confined to those who took no more than moderate doses, benefits increased with age and for those with more cardiac risk factors. Chan also said the results don't suggest that all women should take aspirin.

``These data support a need for continued investigation of the use of aspirin for chronic disease prevention,'' the study authors said.

The study was an observational study, not a clinical trial. His group used 24 years of data from 79,439 nurses enrolled in the Nurses Health Study. At the beginning of the study, the women had no history of cardiovascular disease or cancer.

Aspirin was less effective at preventing cancer, with women who took the drug showing an average 12 percent lower risk for the disease.

Aspirin is a registered trademark of Bayer AG of Leverkusen, Germany. Felix Hoffman, a Bayer chemist, first synthesized acetylsalicylic acid, the active ingredient in the medicine, in 1897, according to the company's Web site. Other companies make generic copies of the drug. Salicylic acid is also found in the inner bark of white willow, a large tree found in Europe, Asia and North America, according to Answers.com.

To contact the reporter on this story: Barbara Powell in Dallas at Bpowell4@bloomberg.net

Last Updated: March 26, 2007 17:50 EDT