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Saturday, February 26, 2011

Aspirin May Help Diabetics With Kidney Disease Avoid Heart Complications

A new study from a team of Japanese researchers at the Nara Medical University shows that low daily doses of aspirin may help reduce risk of heart disease in patients who have both type 2 diabetes and kidney disease.

Heart disease, as we all know, is the most common cause of death for individuals who have type 2 diabetes because persistently high levels of blood sugar in the veins causes inflammation that leads atherosclerosis, which is a hardening of the arteries that causes the heart to work harder, eventually causing it to wear out.

The research, published in the journal Diabetes Care, concludes that there appears to be a strong relationship between diabetes-induced kidney disease and aspirin therapy. If future studies bear out these results, aspirin could provide a simple solution to a major problem that affects millions of people.

"The current study demonstrated that low-dose aspirin therapy reduced the risk of atherosclerotic events in type 2 diabetic patients," the researchers wrote in their report.

For the study, researchers gave a group of more than 2,500 participants who had type 2 diabetes and kidney disease either an 81 mg daily dose of aspirin, a 100 mg daily dose or no aspirin at all. The researchers then tracked the participants' medical records for nearly five years. During this time they checked for instances of stroke, heart disease and peripheral artery disease.

They found that individuals who were in either of the groups that received aspirin had significantly fewer atherosclerosis-related incidences than those who did not receive aspirin.

"The current study demonstrated that low-dose aspirin therapy reduced the risk of atherosclerotic events in type 2 diabetic patients," the researchers conclude.

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