Aspirin for cancer prevention

For most, a common knowledge is that the excessive use of aspirin could be detrimental. However, as an article in the New York Times explains, the daily intake of this drug could be a prevention of cancer.

Many people such as Vanessa Brannon, a 31-year-old mother from Seattle, have inherited conditions of colon cancer and Lynch Syndrome. For patients such as Vanessa it was found in a British study that when taking aspirin for two years their risk of colon cancer was cut in half! Although this finding was astonishing, doctors are still not sure how much aspirin the patients, or anyone else, should be taking. Many believe that a small dosage daily may work but trials that had patients take aspirin every other day had no effect on cancer risks at all.

In summary aspirin has been found to be a potential in reducing the risk of many types of cancer, when taken daily, including metastatic cancer by 36 percent, prostate and colon cancers by 46 percent, and prevention of breast, uterine, ovarian and pancreatic cancers and lung cancers in smokers.

Of course critics say the analyses may not be reliable, but it is not dismissed. However, the widespread use of aspirin worries public health experts because of the increase of gastrointestinal bleeding, ulcers and hemorrhagic strokes that can be fatal. It comes down to weighing the risk of what the drug will prevent to what the drug will cause.