Aspirin may truly be the wonder drug of the ages. It reduces fever and pain and is used in small doses as an anti-clotting agent to help prevent risk factors that can lead to heart attacks and strokes. Last month a study from Massachusetts General Hospital in Boston reported that aspirin helped prevent colon cancer. (See my blog entry of August 11, 2009) Now another study appears to confirm those results, according to a Reuters report. British researchers report that a daily dose of aspirin can prevent colon cancer in people with a genetic disorder that increases their risk of developing the disease. One of the researchers notes that the study might also have uncovered a simple way of controlling stems cells that make tumors grow.
"We believe that aspirin may have an effect on the survival of aberrant (faulty) stem cells in the colon," Burn said, presenting his findings at the ECCO-ESMO European cancer congress in Berlin. Colorectal cancer is the second greatest cause of cancer death in the U.S. and Europe, so the findings could be significant. Some studies have suggested aspirin blocks the Cox-2 enzyme to prevent cancer, but Burn thinks aspirin hits faulty stem cells before they mutate into pre-cancerous cells. As expected, the researchers need to do more research to test out their theories about how aspirin is working to affect the stem cells.
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