A recent study shows that many Americans are simply misusing the drug aspirin in order to avoid risk of heart attacks or strokes.

The research was conducted by the Journal of the American College of Cardiology and found that more than 1 out of 10 users in America misuse the drug, which can account for many side-effects.

The notion that the usage of low doses of aspirin can reduce a person’s chance of getting a heart attack or a stroke has become quite common in today’s day and age, but what most people fail to understand is that this is only valid for those individuals who have had previously suffered from either of the above situations.

Dr. Ravi Hira, the lead researcher and a cardiologist at Baylor College of Medicine in Houston, said, ”This is not one of those drugs that doesn’t present side-effects or risks.”

The drug has side-effects that can lead to gastrointestinal bleeding and hemorrhagic strokes.

Dr. Valentin Fuster, a renowned cardiologist and professor of medicine at the Icahn School of Medicine at Mount Sinai in New York City, said that when using Aspirin “often, the risk of bleeding is higher than the risk of heart attack or stroke.”

This is alarming as the research suggests that out of the 69,000 U.S. adults prescribed Aspirin long-term, about 12 percent of these individuals have been misusing it, and therefore should never have been prescribed.