Daily low-dose aspirin halves diabetes incidence
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The commercials on TV are filled with all kinds of drugs targeting (pre)diabetes, obesity and insulin resistance. All such drugs invariably come with a long list of very serious, even deadly, side effects and mainstream medicine is not a step closer to preventing or curing diabetes than it was 50 years ago. Sugar continues to be demonized, while low-carb diets and fasting are all the rage now and have been for the last 10-15 years. None of the drugs on the market for preventing diabetes can boast more than single-digit risk reduction of diabetes, and pharma companies still consider such results a monumental “success”. Well, it looks like humble aspirin, even at the low-dose (100mg daily) commonly prescribed for cardiovascular issues, can reduce the incidence of diabetes by about 50%. It is a shame the study did not examine the effects of higher aspirin doses, as aspirin’s pro-metabolic effects are known to be dose-dependent. We can thank Big Pharma and the public health authorities for that study handicap given their relentless fearmongering about aspirin “risks” and how it should be used only if a doctor prescribes it and only if other options are not available. Now, the study did find a small increase in bleeding risk with aspirin, but paradoxically this rusk is actually more pronounced at lower aspirin doses than at higher ones. Thus, a higher dose in the range of, say, 300mg-500mg would probably have an even stronger anti-diabetic effect while reducing bleeding risks.
https://cardiab.biomedcentral.com/articles/10.1186/s12933-025-02802-9
“…The primary outcome was the onset of T2DM, defined as a new diagnosis accompanied by antidiabetic prescriptions lasting more than 30 days. Gastrointestinal bleeding was assessed as the safety endpoint. Over the follow-up period, 488 new cases of T2DM were documented (15.6% of the total population), with 174 cases occurring in the aspirin group (22.3 per 1000 person-years) and 314 in the non-aspirin group (40.2 per 1000 person-years), indicating a significantly lower incidence of diabetes among aspirin-treated individuals. Given the difference in comorbidity rates between groups, a Cox regression analysis was conducted across the entire follow-up period, showing that aspirin use was associated with a 47% reduction in the risk of developing T2DM (HR 0.53, 95% CI 0.44–0.64, p < 0.001). However, aspirin use was also linked to an increased risk of gastrointestinal bleeding (4.9% vs 3.1%, p < 0.05). Kaplan–Meier survival curves confirmed a significantly lower cumulative incidence of T2DM in the aspirin-treated group (log-rank test p < 0.0001)….Daily treatment with 100 mg aspirin was associated with approximately a 50% reduction in the incidence of new-onset T2DM, but also with an increased risk of gastrointestinal bleeding, in elderly individuals with prediabetes.”