Aspirin may be associated with a lower risk of colorectal cancer, a new study suggests

Aspirin is well known for it heart attack preventive benefits, but a new study also links the common drug to a reduced risk of colon cancer.

The study analyzed data from 107,655 men and women who participated in the Nurses’ Health Education and Health Professionals Continuing Education over a three-decade period. It was published in JAMA Oncology on Thursday.

Researchers at Massachusetts General Hospital, Harvard Medical School and Washington University School of Medicine found that out regular use of aspirin was associated with a lower risk of colon cancer – especially in those with unhealthy lifestyles.

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“It shows an association between the use of regular, low-dose aspirin and a reduction in the use of colon cancer (nearly 20%) in patients who are already at high risk for several reasons, including smoking or eating the wrong food,” said Dr. Marc Siegel, senior. Fox News medical analyst and clinical professor of medicine at NYU Langone Medical Centerwho was not involved in education.

The criteria for identifying healthy lifestyles included high body weight, heavy smoking, heavy alcohol consumption, lack of exercise and proper nutrition.

“We found that the participants in our health study had the greatest benefit from aspirin use,” said lead study author Daniel Sikavi, MD, a board-certified physician at Massachusetts General Hospital. General, he told Fox News Digital.

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“These participants had multiple risk factors that increased their risk of developing colorectal cancer, and our results show that aspirin can significantly reduce this high risk.”

Among patients with a good healththe benefit from aspirin was still visible, but less pronounced.

“In a very healthy group, treating 78 patients with aspirin would prevent one case of Colon cancer for more than 10 years, while it would take to treat 909 patients to prevent one case in a healthy group,” added Sikavi.

As for why aspirin reduces the risk of colon cancer, Siegel said it may be because the drug acts as an anti-inflammatory, and many types of cancer are associated with high inflammation. .

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Based on the findings, the researchers suggest that health care providers consider recommending aspirin to patients with poor health.

“This work is an example of how we can go beyond single methods of cancer prevention by targeting effective preventive medicine, such as aspirin, to the people who can benefit,” Sikavi said. .

Potential disadvantages

Another limitation of the study is that the researchers did not systematically examine the side effects associated with aspirin use, Sikavi noted.

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“Because this was an observational study, it is possible that there were additional factors that influenced our findings, although we were able to robustly account for many of the known risk factors for of colorectal cancer,” he said.

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Siegel repeated that because this is observational study“still not proof.”

The American Cancer Society estimates that there will be 106,590 new cases of colon cancer and 46,220 new cases of bone cancer by 2024.