Could an aspirin a day keep diabetes away?

If the question is can taking an aspirin a day absolutely protect anyone against developing type II diabetes, the answer is no. But over a period of about 20 years, it seems to help.

Nearly a quarter century ago the Physicians’ Health Study began studying over 20,000 male physicians to find correlations of lifestyle, disease, and disease prevention. Although it certainly could be argued that doctors are not the best representatives of the population, this study of physicians and lifestyle has yielded an enormous amount of data.

The results of this study are correlational. That means, they show that aspects of lifestyle and aspects of health are related, but not necessarily that they cause each other. Still, the sheer volume of information is a great source of good questions if not always a great source good answers.

Dr. Yasuaki Hayashino, who practices and does research in Kyoto, Japan, looked at the data on 22,071 initially healthy physicians over a period of 22 years. He found that the doctors who followed the common advice to take a baby aspirin (about 80 mg in most cases) had lower rates of diabetes the first five years, but not significantly lower rates. After 20 years, taking a baby aspirin a day seemed to lower the risk of getting diabetes about 14 per cent.

Why should this be?

As I’ve been blogging recently, adult-onset diabetes seems to be caused, at least in part, by inflammation. Certain foods, such as ketchup, French fries, meat, eggs, and cheese, are associated with the kind of inflammation that may cause diabetes. Of course, doctors who were health-minded enough to take an aspirin a day may also have been health-minded enough to avoid fried foods. It could be that an aspirin a day doesn’t really prevent diabetes at all.

But apparently it doesn’t hurt.

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