Using Aspirin to Prevent Heart Disease in People With D...

Using Aspirin to Prevent Heart Disease in People With Diabetes

Using Aspirin to Prevent Heart Disease in People With Diabetes
Kelly Close
About.com

Who Should Consider Taking Aspirin as a Prevention Strategy?

People with an elevated risk for cardiovascular events or stroke should consider taking aspirin regularly. The American Heart Association recommends aspirin for people with a history of heart attack, angina, strokes caused by blood clots or "little strokes" (also known as transient ischemic attacks). The American Diabetes Association (ADA) recommends aspirin therapy for people who have either type 1 or type 2 diabetes and one or more of the following risk factors:

A family history of coronary heart disease
Cigarette smoking
Hypertension
Obesity (defined as a body mass index of more than 27.3 in women or 27.8 in men)
Albuminuria (a protein in the urine; sometimes a sign of heart disease)
Age of 30 or greater

Another risk factor is a lipid profile indicating any of the following:

Total cholesterol greater than 200 mg/dL (milligrams per deciliter)
LDL cholesterol greater than or equal to 100 mg/dL
HDL cholesterol less than 45 mg/dL in men or 55 mg/dL in women
Triglycerides greater than 200 mg/dL

What's the Right Aspirin Dosage?
As a preventive therapy, aspirin should be taken in very low doses. The ADA recommends using enteric-coated aspirin, which is easier on the stomach than uncoated aspirin, in doses of 81 to 325 mg a day. (A standard Bayer aspirin is 325 mg, whereas a baby aspirin is typically 81 mg.) A study published in the journal Diabetes Care suggests that an aspirin dose of 75 mg a day or more is effective as a preventative therapy.
Who Should Not Take Aspirin?
Long-term aspirin therapy should not be considered for those people who have at least one of the following criteria:

Aspirin allergy
Bleeding tendency (recent gastrointestinal bleeding, recent anticoagulant therapy, etc.)
Active liver disease
Age younger than 21 (Aspirin may increase the risk of Reye's syndrome, a disease found almost exclusively in children.)

A health care provider or diabetes educator should always be consulted before long-term aspirin therapy is started.

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