People at high risk of developing colon cancer can cut their risk of developing the disease by taking a low dose of aspirin once a day, according to a new study.
Researchers at the John Radcliffe Hospital and University of Oxford in the United Kingdom found that a 75-milligram dose of aspirin taken daily will decrease colon cancer risk by 24 percent.
The study, published in the early online edition of The Lancet today, also suggests that those who have been diagnosed with colon cancer can reduce their risk of dying from the condition by 35 percent if they take a low dose of aspirin each day.
But that doesn’t necessarily mean all of us should start popping an aspirin each morning with breakfast. The study findings only apply to individuals at high risk of developing colorectal cancer, like those with a family history of the disease.
Dr. David Ryan, clinical director of Massachusetts General Hospital’s Cancer Center, told AOL Health the news that aspirin can fight colon cancer isn’t new. “The hidden story in all of this is that colonoscopy may not do as good a job of preventing right-sided colon cancer as it does in fighting left-sided,” he says. That means that aspirin may be central to fighting colon cancer where colonoscopy fails.
“Colonoscopy has not done the job we thought it would do years ago of wiping out colon cancer,” Ryan adds, “but we do know that aspirin decreases the risk for right-sided colon cancer.” He says the aspirin likely acts as a COX-2 inhibitor. COX-2 is an enzyme responsible for inflammation in the body. Aspirin may also slow the development of intestinal polyps, which can develop into cancer.
Researchers from this latest study reviewed data from four randomized trials designed to evaluate aspirin’s effect on vascular disease and colorectal cancer. It included more than 14,000 people treated with aspirin or a placebo for six years with almost 20 years of follow-up.
Dr. James Church, director of the David G. Jagelman Inherited Colon Cancer Registries at the Cleveland Clinic, told AOL Health the major weakness in the study is that it didn’t set out to study colon cancer exclusively. But he said the study results are consistent with studies that have been conducted at the Cleveland Clinic, which show that aspirin use cuts the development of intestinal polyps in half.
Ryan says aspirin may also have some effect in preventing the recurrence of colon cancer in patients who have already had it.
The study authors found no evidence that taking a higher dose of aspirin provides any additional protection against colon cancer and recommend no more than a 75-milligram dose for high risk individuals, as high doses of aspirin have been linked to stomach bleeding and ulcers. They do not recommend the general population begin taking aspirin daily.
Ryan, who was not involved in this most recent study, says experts disagree on the safety of taking an aspirin a day and felt the study authors “made a bit of a leap” in recommending against it for the general population.
Eric Jacobs, strategic director of pharmacoepidemiology with the American Cancer Society, firmly believes people should not take an aspirin a day without a doctor’s direction to do so. “Aspirin, even at low doses, substantially increases the risk of serious, occasionally fatal, gastrointestinal bleeding,” he says. He points out than even low doses of aspirin can increase that risk almost as much as higher doses.
The American Cancer Society recommends that all men and women 50 and older receive screening tests for colon and colorectal cancer.
