Aspirin compared to other drugs is cheap, less hazardous and commonly taken by millions to reduce their risk of heart attack and stroke, not to mention to manage the self-induced effects of hangovers. Recent developments have suggested that it could help inhibit and treat cancer, increase fertility and may even be involved in dementia. So is this generic drug, made from the willow bark tree and discovered over 100 years ago set to become the super pill of the 21st century?
Last week, the world's largest clinical trial on patients taking aspirin was launched to investigate whether it could stop cancers of the bowel, breast, esophagus, prostate or stomach from recurring. The Add-Aspirin trial on 11,000 people that was funded by Cancer Research UK and the National Health Service (NHS), will continue for 12 years. Meanwhile a US study has discovered that taking around a quarter of an aspirin daily could not only boost fertility in women, it could also boost their chances of having a healthy baby.
Other major clinical trials are also set to report on aspirin's benefits in the next decade. And last August, one study discovered that taking aspirin daily in low-doses could save over 6,500 lives from cancer per year and prevent nearly 500 fatal heart attacks.
Professor Ruth Langley of University College London and chief investigator in the new Add-Aspirin trial said that researchers noticed that less cancer developed and people dying from cancer decreased in trials with low-dose aspirin for heart disease. In one landmark study which can be found in The Lancet in 2011 led by Professor Peter Rothwell, a clinical neurologist at Oxford University and leading researcher on aspirin, when taken for at least five years in middle age it can reduce the risk of developing gastro-intestinal cancers of the stomach, bowel and esophagus by 20 percent while also protecting against breast, lung and prostate cancers to an even lesser extent.
Professor Rothwell's team found that patients with cancer taking a daily aspirin had a 30-40 percent lesser chance of their cancer spreading or to the brain, lungs or liver.
