Aspirin can protect against cancer - and treat it.

Crabsallover has covering the aspirin-anti-cancer link since 2011 when Peter Rothwell peer-reviewed research strongly indicated that taking a daily aspirin could prevent cancers.

"Aspirin is already used by millions to reduce the risk of heart attacks and strokes. But the latest research suggests that the drug could also have a major role in treating and preventing cancer. Cheap and safe, it is the nearest we have to a wonder drug, says Jeremy Laurance. So, should we all be taking it?"

 "Dutch researchers reported that a daily aspirin could double the life expectancy of patients with gastro-intestinal cancers"

"In a study presented in Vienna this week [September 2015], Dutch researchers reported that a daily aspirin could double the life expectancy of patients with gastro-intestinal cancers – of the oesophagus, stomach and colon. Among the 14,000 cancer patients studied, regular users of the drug were twice as likely to be alive after four years as those who were not taking it."

"Aspirin can halt the march of any cancer through the body"

"Overall, the research suggests that a daily low dose (75mg) aspirin taken for at least five years in middle age can reduce the risk of developing gastro-intestinal cancers (of the oesophagus, stomach and colon) by around 20 per cent. It also protects against other cancers such as breast, lung and prostate, but the reduction in risk is less pronounced. As a treatment, it may be even more powerful. A review of eight large randomised controlled trials – the gold standard of medical research and stronger evidence than Dr Frouws' “observational” study – involving 25,000 patients taking a low daily dose of aspirin to ward off heart disease – found the drug reduced deaths due to all cancers by more than a fifth (21 per cent)."

 "Aspirin makes the blood less able to carry cancer cells."

"Published in The Lancet in 2011, that review was followed by a second one, published in 2012, of five randomised trials, which found that patients with cancer taking a daily aspirin reduced “distant metastasis” – spread to organs such as the brain, liver and lungs, which is usually terminal – by 30-40 per cent... Peter Rothwell, Professor of neurology at Oxford University and doyen of aspirin researchers, who conducted both reviews, said this was powerful evidence. Aspirin can halt cancer's remorseless march through the body (though it does not prevent local spread). And not just specific cancers but any cancer."

"The drug appears to work by making the platelets, one of the constituents of the blood, less “sticky”. As a cancer grows, cells break off and are carried round the body in the blood by the platelets until deposited in a distant organ, where they form a new tumour. By reducing the platelets' stickiness, aspirin makes it harder for them to carry and distribute the cancer cells."

"Critics, however, urge caution before aspirin is recommended for mass medication. They point out that most of the randomised controlled trials cited as evidence of its benefits were not designed to test its anti-cancer effects. Potential dangers may not be apparent from trials involving different patient populations."

reposted from: http://www.independent.co.uk/life-style/health-and-families/features/aspirin-can-protect-against-cancer-and-treat-it-according-to-new-research-a6676056.html