A WOMAN'S risk of developing the most common kind of breast cancer could be reduced simply by taking an aspirin every day, researchers have found.
The wonder drug has already been shown to combat pain, rheumatoid arthritis, heart disease, stroke and some cancers, notably those of the lung, bowel and pancreas. Now for the first time aspirin has been shown to lower the risk of hormone-sensitive b
reast cancer.
Tumours are fuelled by the female hormone oestrogen in 75 per cent of breast cancers.
A study involving 127,000 women found that aspirin was linked to a small reduction in the risk of having this form of the disease. The women, aged 51 to 72, were enrolled into a major investigation into links between diet, behaviour and cancer in the United States.
Aspirin belongs to a class of medicines known as non-steroidal anti-inflammatory drugs.
The researchers found that they generally had no influence on overall susceptibility to breast cancer but that daily doses of aspirin resulted in a 16 per cent reduction in risk for oestrogen-positive breast cancers.
In Breast Cancer Research, the authors led by Dr Gretchen Gierach, of the National Cancer Institute, Rockville, Maryland, concluded: "Daily aspirin use... appeared to offer some protect-ion for oestrogen-positive breast cancer in this population."
Aspirin is one of the most remarkable drugs available – as well as one of the oldest.
Its history can be traced to the father of modern medicine, Hippocrates, in ancient Greece.
One of the remedies he used for pain and fever was powder made from the bark and leaves of the willow tree. A compound derived from willow was patented as aspirin in 1889 by the German pharmaceutical company Bayer. Research is now under way into its use for a range of illnesses.
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