Tumors, does acetylsalicylic acid keep them away?

According to the latest news coming from the United Kingdom, published in a scientific journal, small daily doses of the drug would keep cancer away.

Everything comes from a tall tree, the Willow, appreciated since ancient times for its content in healing substances. From its bark the ancients obtained an effective remedy in relieving pain, but also in the treatment of other conditions associated with inflammation and fever.

Properties related to the presence in the plant of salicylates, such as salicylic acid, precursor of acetylsalicylic acid (Asa). Drug today well known to all for its anti-inflammatory, analgesic and antipyretic properties. It is widely used in the symptomatic treatment of painful manifestations and fever.

Established mechanisms and activities

The pain-relieving and antifebrile activities of ASA are due to blocking the synthesis of substances that promote inflammation (prostaglandins) because the drug interferes with the activity of the enzymes intended to produce them. This action makes it an effective remedy against seasonal ailments, pain, fever and inflammation. As well as in chronic inflammatory diseases such as arthritis.

In addition, it has been seen that it has a thinning activity on the blood, exploited to reduce the risk of heart attack and stroke in predisposed people.

When, on the advice of the doctor, it is taken daily in low doses (lower than those used against pain and inflammation) it offers a protective effect against cardiovascular diseases, preventing the formation of clots.

Antitumor properties

But that’s not all: it seems that 75 mg of acetylsalicylic acid per day, taken regularly, are able to counteract the onset of tumors. This is stated by a group of English researchers from Oxford University.

Reviewing the medical history of more than 25,500 people who had taken Asa daily as a preventive treatment for cardiovascular events, the researchers, led by Peter Rothwell, noticed a particular coincidence.

In the group studied, the risk of dying from cancer was 20% lower than in those who did not take ASA. And this anti-cancer “shield” effect seems to persist for 10 or even 20 years, even when acetylsalicylic acid therapy has been stopped after a variable time of between four and eight years.

In fact, the hypothesis that ASA also had a protective action against tumors, as well as cardiovascular diseases, is not new. But still no one had been able to collect data like those that the British group published, in December 2010, in the medical journal The Lancet.

Activity in cancer prevention confirmed

The published data speak for themselves: five years after the start of daily intake of ASA, the incidence of all cancers has decreased by 34%, and by 54% if only gastrointestinal cancers are taken into account. But even after 20 years, protection against cancer remains, reducing the total risk of dying from it by 20%.

Tumors and inflammation: a dangerous relationship

It remains to be established how the ASA interferes with the onset of neoplasms. The hypothesis formulated for some time is that the molecule counteracts the development of tumors by acting on the inflammatory mechanisms linked to the latter.

More research is needed because there may also be other effects such as pro-apoptotic ones, that is, that favor the “suicide” of developing cancer cells.

And, comments the Italian Society of Medical Oncology (Aiom), we must still be a little cautious because the elements to broadly recommend the use of Asa (75 mg per day for at least five years) to protect against tumors are not yet sufficient.

While waiting for new confirmations we resort to the right foods

The benefits of acetylsalicylic acid could meanwhile be “mimicred” by increasing the intake of salicylate-rich foods in our diet. What are they? Here is a short list.

Fruit

• Peanut
• cherries
• dates
• raspberries
• almonds
• blackcurrant
• red currant

Vegetables

• Broccoli
• cucumber
• chicory
• watercress
• endive
• Peppers
• radicchio
• radishes
• Zucchini