Regular aspirin use might be doing more harm than good. University of Warwick researchers said that daily intake of aspirin leads to a 37 per cent increased risk of internal bleeding and a 38 per cent increased risk of hemorrhagic stroke.

"There is a plethora of evidence in this area but nobody has drawn together the advantages and disadvantages of aspirin in a systematic way. We need to be extremely careful about promoting the daily use without fully understanding all the evidence," researcher Paul Sutcliffe, who led the team, said, Reuters reports.

"All I would say is to not stop taking aspirin without talking to your doctor. If you are healthy, the harms of daily aspirin cancel out the benefits."

The anti-inflammatory drug is usually taken to relieve headaches. However it is also used to reduce risk of heart diseases. Aspirin is known to break down arterial clotting caused due to the accumulation of fatty deposits.

For the study the researchers examined 27 studies published between 2008 and 2012.

While regular intake of aspirin led to 33 to 46 deaths in 10,000 people over a 10-year period, at the same it also caused 46 to 49 major bleeds and 68 to 117 gastrointestinal bleeds over the same time period.

"Aspirin could reduce the stroke risk by one-quarter, and that big benefit outweighs the small bleeding risk," Dr. Peter Sandercock of the Centre for Clinical Brain Sciences at the University of Edinburgh in Scotland.

The researchers concluded that aspirin presents more harmful effects than benefits when used as a primary prevention of cardiovascular disease.

The finding has been published in the open-access journal Plos One.