Cancer: take two aspirin and … - Brief Article

Better Nutrition, Nov, 2003

According to a study published in the August 2003 issue of the journal Nature, aspirin could be used to treat certain types of cancer. The research adds to growing evidence that the humble painkiller--which is more than 100 years old--can be used to fight a wide range of diseases.

Scientists now believe aspirin call fight a rare form of skin cancer--turban tumor syndrome, which causes tumors to grow out of the scalp and other hairy parts of the body--and some breast cancers. The drug can help reduce inflammation in the body, the underlying cause of some of these cancers.

Back around the fifth century BC, Hippocrates used a bitter powder obtained from willow bark to ease aches and pains and to reduce fever.

The willow bark contained salicin, the pharmacological ancestor of a family of drugs called salicylates, of which aspirin is probably the most famous.

Aspirin is not merely an effective painkiller. Previous studies have suggested that aspirin could help treat conditions such as heart disease and strokes by improving circulation. But new benefits of the drug are regularly being discovered by researchers.

Aspirin is now thought to help fight a wide range of conditions, from cardiovascular disease and cancer to migraine headaches and high blood pressure that occurs during pregnancy.

Studies have also suggested it can double the chances of an in vitro fertilization pregnancy, and aspirin may even help block the spread of certain viruses.