Anton Bilchik Discusses the Anti-Cancer Effects Found In Women Taking Every-Other-Day Aspirin

Anton Bilchik Discusses the Anti-Cancer Effects Found In Women Taking Every-Other-Day Aspirin

Anton Bilchik is following a new study published in the Annals of Internal Medicine that suggests taking an aspirin every other day may help healthy women ward off colon cancer. This study adds evidence to the emerging theory that aspirin reduces the risk for cancer and improves the prognosis for those who already have the disease. Of cancers that affect both men and women, colon cancer is the second leading cause of cancer-related deaths in the United States.

Researchers led by Nancy Cook, Associate Biostatistician at Brigham and Women’s Hospital and Professor of Medicine at Harvard Medical School in Boston, examined data on 39,876 women aged 45 and over who took part in the Women’s Health Study, or WHS, set up at that school. The study intended to test the benefits and risks of low-dose aspirin and vitamin E in the prevention and treatment of heart disease and cancer in women.

The WHS has been running for more than 19 years, producing enough data for 400 published research reports, to date. Researchers randomly divided participants who enrolled between 1994 and 1996 into two groups: one that took 100 mg of aspirin every other day, and another that took a placebo. While this aspirin regimen did not have an effect on breast or lung cancer, low-dose aspirin treatment did appear to lower the risk of colon cancer. This cancer-reducing benefit only appeared ten years after treatment, so aspirin does not provide immediate protection from colon cancer.

Anton Bilchik recommends women talk to their doctors before beginning an aspirin regimen. Taking aspirin regularly for a long time increases the risk for dangerous intestinal bleeding, and it may take years of aspirin treatment for the anti-cancer benefit to emerge.