Another benefit of Aspirin

A new study recently published shows that Aspirin can help prevent colorectal cancer.

The study found that aspirin at a dosage of 300 mg or more per day for about 5 years reduced the subsequent incidence of colorectal cancer by 37% overall, and by 74% during the period 10 to 15 years after treatment was started.

These results were published in the May 12 issue of The Lancet.

The investigators did not want to say that the findings were sufficient enough to warrant a recommendation for the general population to use aspirin for cancer prevention.

There remains concern over the potential risks of long-term aspirin use and also the availability of alternative prevention strategies, such as screening.

As with studies of aspirin use in healthy individuals for the primary prevention of cardiovascular disease, the benefit of aspirin is more or less outweighed by the risk of bleeding, but they have not made this determination yet for colon cancer.

If on the other hand, you have a bad family history of colon cancer, the benefit of Aspirin may certainly outweigh the risk.

In other countries where colonoscopies are not readily available, aspirin use could help decrease the incidence of colon cancer.

The optimum dose is still yet to be determined but this study used 325 mg which is higher than that needed for heart disease prevention.

If you are healthy with no stomach related problems and over the age of 40, it might be worthwhile to discuss the option with your physician.