You can use it to prevent a heart attack, reduce a fever, and ... fight cancer? New research reveals one of the oldest drugs around, aspirin, may lead to new weapons in the battle against cancer.
Researchers from the University of Newcastle in England discovered high doses of aspirin reduce the formation of new blood vessels, something tumors need to grow.
The study provides an important link between inflammation and cancer and opens up the possibility of new cancer drugs, according to Gerald Weissmann, M.D., editor-in-chief of The Federation of America Societies for Experimental Biology Journal. Dr. Weissmann was not involved in the study, but said it's an important area of study. "It provides a terrific link and a new observation, and they don't come that often," he told Ivanhoe.
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Evidence is mounting that regular aspirin usage may reduce the risk of many of today's commonest cancers. First indications of this were in colon cancer. In a long term study of 90,000 US nurses between 1976 and 1995 those who took 4-6 tablets of aspirin per week had a greatly reduced incidence of colorectal cancer compared with nurses who did not take aspirin. The longer the nurses had been taking aspirin the greater the protection they gained.
More recently, a study involving 14,000 women has shown that those who had reported using aspirin 3 or more times per week for at least 6 months were one third less likely to develop lung cancer compared with women who had taken no aspirin. The risk reduction was even greater for non-small cell lung cancer.
Also recently published is a study of the effect of aspirin usage in pancreatic cancer incidence in 28,000 post-menopausal women. In those individuals who took aspirin 2-5 times per week, the risk of developing pancreatic cancer was 53% lower than in those women who had never taken aspirin. The more often the women took aspirin, the lower their risk of cancer.
What dose of aspirin to use, how frequently to use it and even exactly how it works are still unknown but more work is being done to clarify these issues. What is clear from the accumulating evidence is that regular use of aspirin really does seem to reduce the risk of a growing range of the commonest and most serious cancers.
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During the study, researchers wanted to know how aspirin works when it reduces inflammation and the growth of blood vessels. Aspirin given at high levels, four grams to six grams a day, has a completely different affect than aspirin given at the normal doses -- 80 milligrams to 1.5 grams maximum. They thought maybe it would work the way COX-2 inhibitors work, by blocking a special enzyme that causes the pain and swelling in conditions like arthritis. Instead, the researchers discovered it works by stopping NfkappaB, a molecule that signals to the body when and where to grow new blood vessels. Without new blood vessels tumors cannot grow, and the painful swelling and joint destruction of arthritis is reduced.
Dr. Weissmann cautions consumers should not start taking high doses of aspirin to prevent or treat cancer. "Were you to give these doses for long periods of time, people would probably bleed to death and die of ulcers," he said.
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