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.

Diabetes: Your Arteries May Be Suffering Insulin Resistance

In people with insulin resistance or full-blown diabetes, an inability to keep blood sugar levels under control isn't the only problem by far. A new report in the May issue of Cell Metabolism shows that our arteries suffer the effects of insulin resistance, too, just for entirely different reasons.

"We think about insulin resistance in liver, muscle, and fat, but insulin also works on vascular cells," said Christian Rask-Madsen of the Joslin Diabetes Center in Boston. And what insulin does in our arteries sends a signal that helps prevent the buildup of fatty plaques that can cause arteries to harden, new research in mice shows.

Earlier studies showed that in the context of systemic insulin resistance, blood vessels become resistant, too. Doctors also knew that insulin resistance and the high insulin levels to which it leads are independent risk factors for vascular disease. But it wasn't clear if arteries become diseased because they can't respond to insulin or because they get exposed to too much of it.

Now comes evidence in favor of the former explanation. Rask-Madsen along with George King and their colleagues find that mice prone to atherosclerosis fare much worse when the linings of their arteries can't respond to insulin. The animals' insulin-resistant arteries develop plaques that are twice the size of those on normal arteries.

Insulin-resistant blood vessels don't open up as well, and levels of a protein known as VCAM-1 go up in them, too.

VCAM-1 belongs to a family of adhesion molecules, Rask-Madsen explained. "It sits on the endothelium and binds white blood cells." Those cells can enter the artery wall, where they start taking up cholesterol, and an early plaque is born.

"The results provide definitive evidence that loss of insulin signaling in the endothelium, in the absence of competing systemic risk factors, accelerates atherosclerosis," the researchers conclude.

The findings should come as good news to those on insulin therapy, since they suggest the hormone itself should not cause harm to arteries, as some had feared. "If anything, it should be beneficial in preventing atherosclerosis," Rask-Madsen said.

The results also suggest drugs specifically designed to treat insulin resistance in the vasculature might prevent cardiovascular complications in people with insulin resistance or type 2 diabetes, the researchers say.

While the researchers emphasize that it will remain critical to keep blood sugar in check with more traditional therapies, new treatments aimed at blood vessels could mean big gains for those with diabetes. After all, atherosclerosis is responsible for many of diabetes' worst complications—heart disease, stroke, and leg amputations among them.

"Atherosclerosis is the main reason for shorter life spans in diabetes patients," Rask-Madsen said.

Courtesy: machineslikeus.com

Recommended Blood Pressure Level Differs For Heart Patients With Diabetes

The best blood pressure range for patients with diabetes and heart disease appears to be slightly higher than what is recommended for healthy adults, according to a study. Blood pressure greater than 140 is still associated with a nearly 50 percent increase in cardiovascular risk in these patients.

In fact, the blood pressure range considered normal -- less than 120 systolic and less than 80 diastolic -- may actually be risky for those with a combined diagnosis of diabetes and coronary artery disease, report University of Florida researchers from the International Verapamil SR-Trandolapril study, known as INVEST.

According to Rhonda Cooper-DeHoff, Pharm D, an associate professor of pharmacy and medicine at UF, optimum systolic blood pressure levels should be between 130 and 140 for patients coping with the diabetes-heart disease combination.

Efforts to reduce systolic blood pressure to below 130 did not offer any additional benefit to patients with diabetes and coronary artery disease, compared with reduction of systolic blood pressure to between 130 and less than 140.

"Sustained blood pressure lower than 120 is considered optimal for healthy people," Cooper-DeHoff said. "But, our data show that for these patients with diabetes, the range may actually cause an increased risk for heart attack, stroke, and death."

As many as two out of three adults with diabetes have high blood pressure. Blood pressure greater than 140 is still associated with a nearly 50 percent increase in cardiovascular risk in these patients.

"While lowering blood pressure to less than 140 is very important, based on our data and data recently published by others, it is now clear that in patients with diabetes, it is not necessary, and may be harmful to lower blood pressure too much," Cooper-DeHoff said.

In addition, the study for the first time reveals that this group of patients had an increased risk for death when their blood pressure was controlled to lower than 115 systolic -- the range recommended as normal by the American Heart Association.

The findings in the Journal of American Medical Association formalize a report Cooper-DeHoff made at the American College of Cardiology's 59th annual scientific session earlier this spring.

Heart disease or stroke is the top cause of death for people with diabetes, affecting more than 60 percent of patients, according to the AHA. High blood pressure, common in diabetes, doubles the risk of cardiovascular disease.

The INVEST study is the first to evaluate the effects of blood pressure-lowering in diabetic patients diagnosed with coronary artery disease. Researchers analyzed data collected from 6,400 patients from fall 1997 to spring 2003. The patients, who were 50 or older, were recruited from more than 850 sites in 14 countries.

The researchers further consulted the national death index for US-enrolled patients for an additional five years to compare death rates of patients based on their blood pressure category ranging from tightly controlled to non-controlled hypertension.

Journal of the American Medical Association, July 10, 2010