Aspirin--is there anything it can't do?
Doctors have known for a decade of the benefits of aspirin in avoiding heart disease and high blood pressure, now researchers at the Harvard Medical School says aspirin can significantly reduce your chances of getting--and dying from, several types of very deadly cancers, News Radio 1200 WOAI reports.
"This recent study from Harvard Medical suggests that taking regular aspirin decreases mortality not only in colo-rectal cancer, but in lung cancer, breast cancer, and prostate cancer," Dr. Steven Kalter, an oncologist at San Antonio's START Center for Cancer Care, told News Radio 1200 WOAI.
Researchers had patients take anywhere from half to one and a half standard aspirin tablets per week, and discovered not only lower mortality risks from cancer, but reductions in overall mortality. People who took two to seven tablets per week had an ever greater risk reduction in cancer mortality. But the benefits decrease as people take more than seven tablets per week.
Dr. Kalter says aspirin is an anti coagulant, and anti-inflammatory agent. He says at its heart, cancer is a series of infected cells that break away from tumors to become metastatic. He says the properties of aspirin prevent those tumors from sticking to other areas of the body.
"Some of the patients that do have malignancy, one of the causes of death in these patients appears to be hyper-coagulation, and aspiring appears to reduce that threat," he said.
The greatest value was in preventing colo-rectal cancer, with patients on an aspirin regimen reported a 31 percent mortality reduction for woman and a 30 percent reduction for men.
Double digit reductions were also reported in the other types of cancer.
Dr. Kalter says in a time when the cost of life saving drugs is skyrocketing, and costs of $100,000 a year just to keep a patient alive are not unusual, it is nice to see that a $3 bottle of aspirin can make such a difference.
"So many of our therapies are very specific and, also very expensive," he said. "And what could be easier than taking a baby aspirin three times a week."
And yes, Dr. Kalter says he personally takes a baby aspirin three times a week.