Fr. Harlan Krumholz, cardiologist and scientist at Yale University, joins Shep Smith to discuss new recommendations regarding aspirin and heart disease, and diabetes testing for obese adults age 35 and over. For access to live and exclusive video from CNBC subscribe to CNBC PRO:
Take a low-dose aspirin to prevent heart attack or stroke for years that’s what millions of americans have been told but new preliminary guidance says that older americans without heart disease should not start taking an aspirin a day the panel of experts from the u.s preventative service task force says taking an aspirin a day may cut the risk of heart disease
And strokes for some adults older than 60 but for others it could raise the risk of internal bleeding and do more harm than good the task force also offering guidance for people ages 40 to 59 those who are at risk or a higher risk of heart disease experts say they should talk to their doctors before taking aspirin daily heart disease is the leading cause of death
In america according to the cdc it kills more than 650 000 people each year that’s one person every 36 seconds dr harlan krumholz is with us now a cardiologist and scientist at yale university doctor thanks so much many americans have been taking a daily low-dose aspirin for years should they stop well you know we always recommend that the people should talk to
Their doctor before they do anything with their medications but it’s important to realize that this is draft guidance and and as you said it’s about people who are prone to heart disease not people who have heart disease there’s still remain many situations where we’re really confident that aspirin provides a service to people but but these experts are coming
Together with this draft guidance it’s out for public comment at this point recommending based on their interpretation the evidence that people on low-dose aspirin may not be getting a benefit if they’re taking it to prevent heart disease in the future even if they’re prone to heart disease yeah just a recommendation as you’ve rightly mentioned so far but do you
See this becoming the new rule well this group of experts has carefully uh studied the literature the the medical research and over the last few years the research has started to point us away from the value of low-dose aspirin in people prone to heart disease again people without heart disease and i’m fairly confident that a lot of these recommendations the
Recommendations that they ask for may not be as useful for older people and for those in middle age it’s a bit of a toss-up and they ought to be talking to their doctors about it i’m fairly confident that’ll be the final recommendations interesting doctor the task force also released new guidance on diabetes screenings they advise that adults who are obese or even
Overweight should start getting tested for diabetes at an earlier age the previous recommendation was 40 now it’s 35 year olds doctor how important is this change yeah i think it’s a very important change look for people who are overweight or more diabetes is something that’s always lurking it’s it’s a risk and we want to be able to help people to reach more ideal
Weights and to be able to prevent diabetes but we know many people are overweight and this is in recognition of that and is telling us that even starting at 35 we’re starting to see higher rates of diabetes and we ought to be looking for it so we can help people with recommendations guidance and see if we can mitigate the potential harms before we go what is the
Most important thing that those of us who are a little older need to do every day to generally stay more healthy yeah i think keeping physically active is is critically important and i’d also say know your blood pressure getting your blood pressure under control making sure it’s not elevated even at older ages there’s value in that but keeping active there’s no
Doubt about it that’s the best thing you can do for yourself doctor thanks so much
Transcribed from video
Low-dose aspirin not recommended for people who do not have heart disease By CNBC Television
