A new, small study found that Type II diabetes patients may benefit more from taking two aspirin a day rather than just one a day. But they’re awaiting the results of a larger study before making any recommendations.
It baffles the mind…
For some reason, mainstream medicine still questions the use of aspirin in general, although it remains a safe and effective way to reduce your risk of heart attacks and some cancers (not to mention effectively treating pain, headache and fever).
Personally, I think big pharma doesn’t want you to use aspirin because they’d much rather sell you their newer drugs instead. Unfortunately, these newer drugs probably don’t work as well, are more dangerous, and certainly more expensive.
On a regular basis, someone raises an alarm about aspirin’s possible side effects, such as gastric irritation or bleeding. So, for doctors who don’t read past the headlines, they jump to conclusions about aspirin. And they don’t seem to realize that taking the other, newer drugs is far more dangerous and expensive.
As far as I’m concerned, researchers settled the case on aspirin’s safety and effectiveness in the Harvard Physician’s Healthy Study I, which ended over 20 years ago. In this large study, doctors who took low-dose aspirin lowered their heart attack risk by a whopping 44 percent. And aspirin use didn’t cause any notable side effects. They even stopped one arm of the study several years early because the results were so strong.
In more recent years, researchers have started to look at giving aspirin to Type II diabetes patients. Mind you, metformin is the only Type II diabetes drug shown to reduce both blood sugar and all the major diabetic complications in heart, eyes, kidney, and nerves. But researchers want to know whether Type II diabetes will further benefit from taking aspirin as a way to prevent heart disease, a major complication of Type II diabetes.
Aspirin improves clotting response
Typically, healthy people take aspirin once a day to prevent heart disease. But, as I mentioned above, these doctors observed Type II diabetes patients might benefit more from taking aspirin twice a day.
The new study followed 42 patients with Type II diabetes who had not been on a daily aspirin regimen before.
After just one week of daily aspirin therapy, they experienced improvements in blood clotting associated with a reduced risk of heart disease. This finding led researchers to suggest that taking an aspirin twice a day, instead of just once, would result in greater prevention of heart disease among people with Type II diabetes.
Researchers are now testing this approach in two large, ongoing studies called Aspirin and Simvastatin Combination for Cardiovascular Events Prevention Trial in Diabetes (ACCEPT-D) and A Study of Cardiovascular Events in Diabetes (ASCEND).
Apparently, if these patients show a net benefit from once-daily aspirin dosing for prevention of heart disease, they will then investigate whether dosing twice-per-day would achieve further benefit.
I’m struck by how terribly conservative, careful and tentative they are when it comes to giving aspirin — which has been used by so many people for so long, the FDA “grandfathered” it into approval more than a century ago.
But I’m also struck by how they just keep handing out statin drugs which are known to be dangerous and useless without any hesitation at all.
So, the researchers delay a definitive recommendation on increasing aspirin intake for Type II diabetes, while they still keep on doling out the statins like candy!
It’s a crying shame.
My advice?
To prevent heart disease, most people should stick to one low-dose aspirin (80 mg) per day. If you’re among the millions of Americans diagnosed with Type II diabetes, you have an increased risk of heart disease. Taking Metformin will manage diabetes and reduce the risk of developing heart disease all on its own. And it won’t hurt to continue taking your daily aspirin.
Of course, metformin derives originally from the ancient botanical remedy French lilac. And aspirin derives from the ancient botanical remedy of white willow and meadowsweet grass — they’ve been around for generations to stand the test of time. That’s my bet as to why they’re so safe and effective relative to most other, newer drugs including statins.
In addition, based on the findings I presented in yesterday’s Daily Dispatch, I also recommend upping your vitamin D regimen to 10,000 IU per day, especially if you are managing Type II diabetes.
For other natural approaches to combat heart disease and lower your blood pressure (without risky prescription heart medications), take a look at my Heart Attack Prevention and Repair Protocol. Click here to enroll or learn more today.
And stay tuned for my newest online protocol on preventing and reversing Type II diabetes with effective, commonsense strategies — scheduled to launch early next month.
Sources:
“Twice-Daily Aspirin Better to Prevent CVD in Diabetes?” Medscape (www.medscape.com) 10/2/2017