Australian experts have hailed as "remarkable" and "significant" a study that found taking aspirin daily cuts your risk of getting cancer, but cautioned the drug should not be regarded as a "magic bullet".
The British study, which was published in the medical journalThe Lancet, analysed eight trials involving 25,570 patients, and found a daily dose of aspirin of less than 75 milligrams - about a quarter of an aspirin tablet - reduced cancer deaths by an average of 21 per cent during the studies and 34 per cent after five years.
"It's fairly interesting that such a widespread - and these days relatively cheap drug - should have such a measurable impact on deaths from cancer, said Cancer Council of Australia's chief executive Professor Ian Olver.
"So it's a remarkable finding given the fact that it can be easily and cheaply implemented across the population."
The director of St Vincent's Clinical School, Professor Allan Spigelman, called the study "strong and "robust" because of its large sample size and use of multiple trials, and said it built on earlier work about the protective benefits of aspirin on bowel cancer.
He cautioned that the reduced cancer risk should be kept in perspective by looking at the number of deaths prevented.
"If say 100,000 people were to take this low dose aspirin for five years, it would prevent 56 cancer deaths. So that needs to be kept in perspective."
Professor Spigelman said that research on the impact of aspirin on cancer - which has sometimes been called a "wonder drug" because its varied medical uses - had not reached the point where "you might sprinkle in the water like fluorine" as it could cause adverse effects for some patients.
Some side-effects include irritation of the stomach leading to ulcers and internal bleeding.
"It has to be personalised," Professor Olver said. "[The study] hasn't defined which age group is best to take the aspirin nor has it defined how long you have to take the aspirin for.
"And I think the caution is that any individual who wanted to try this should really check with their doctor that they don't have any underlying medical condition or aren't on other medication that is incompatible with aspirin."
But Professor Peter Rothwell of John Radcliffe Hospital, Oxford, who led the study, said aspirin's risks were beginning to be "drowned out" by its benefits in reducing the risk of cancer and the risk of heart attacks.
"Previous guidelines have rightly cautioned that in healthy middle-aged people the small risk of bleeding on aspirin partly offsets the benefit from prevention of strokes and heart attacks, but the reductions in deaths due to several common cancers will now alter this balance for many people," he said, adding that he started taking aspirin regularly two years ago.
Professor Olver also highlighted a crucial statistic that should not be forgotten in light of such an "interesting and exciting study" - that one-third of cancer deaths could be prevented by lifestyle changes such as quitting smoking, having a healthy diet, exercising, cutting down on alcohol consumption and getting protection from the sun.


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- with Reuters