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Taking low-dose aspirin is associated with 20% reduction in cancer deaths

cardiff.ac.uk

41–50 of 88 posts

Re: Taking low-dose aspirin is associated with 20% reduction in cancer deaths

#42

This has to be balanced against this news: "Daily low dose aspirin increases brain bleeding risk by 38% in older adults." See: https://www.medicalnewstoday.com/articles/low-dose-aspirin-r...

Yes, we need to see a long-term study of all cause mortality before recommending this intervention for primary prevention.

Re: Taking low-dose aspirin is associated with 20% reduction in cancer deaths

#43

This has to be balanced against this news: "Daily low dose aspirin increases brain bleeding risk by 38% in older adults." See: https://www.medicalnewstoday.com/articles/low-dose-aspirin-r...

100% reduction in cancer deaths in those with self inflicted gunshot wounds to the head

Re: Taking low-dose aspirin is associated with 20% reduction in cancer deaths

#45

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Increases risk for hemorrhagic strokes as well. AFAIUI, your clotting ability is impaired, so if you get a minor bleed, it's not minor for long. IIRC, the recommendations to folks taking aspirin for heart attack prevention is "don't, unless you've already had an ischemic event" because the risk outweighs the benefits for everyone else. That could change if we find new and/or unexpected benefits from low-dose aspirin.

Almost all strokes are ischemic strokes.

yes, hemorrhagic strokes are less frequent, but much worse. I don't think it's quite a wash in the end, but closer to one if all we care about is outcomes (and that's all I do!)

Re: Taking low-dose aspirin is associated with 20% reduction in cancer deaths

#46

although indiscriminate long term aspiring can cause GI side effects

I'm annoyed that the FDA has kept cox-2 selective inhibitors restricted when the data I've seen shows they have lower GI risks and similar cardiovascular risks as other NSAIDs.

because the FDA are sticks-in-the-mud who get blowback when they approve something bad and but barely hear anything if they delay or restrict something good. there was also a to-do about celecoxib potentially increasing risk of heart attacks, plus the off-label marketing thing that led to the largest (at the time) settlement of that sort in history.

the process was also crazy complicated until some new 2020 legislation. the FDA published monographs saying things like "you can make a pain reliever with the following active ingredients and in the following forms." for example, no changes to the monographs on cough and cold medicines were made between 1987 and 2020. the new regime is of course a new mess to figure out, and consumers won't necessarily know the difference between a selective versus nonselective cox inhibitor. so you spend all this money and maybe inertia just keeps people buying ibuprofen and naproxen because it's what they know. and marketing something explicitly as "safer than ibuprofen" would be a massive hurdle to get cleared.

you can find all the FDA's monographs here, where it lists specific ingredients, concentrations, labeling, and testing procedures. https://dps.fda.gov/omuf/monographsearch

Re: Taking low-dose aspirin is associated with 20% reduction in cancer deaths

#47
post #39

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I am very skeptical about these side effect claims. Do you have hard data supporting this or doctor hearsay. Years ago I remember watching Charlie Rose Brain series where one of the professors said something like “ we know of two drugs that we are certain are very safe for human beings: alcohol and aspirin.”

Alcohol has a bunch of recent studies showing that no amount is good, and as little as two drinks per week yield measurable negative impacts.

what if I do all the other things that go along with drinking for health, like speak Italian or French while I drink?

Re: Taking low-dose aspirin is associated with 20% reduction in cancer deaths

#48
post #25

Tomorrow's news will say it will be a 20% increase in some other desease...

Aspirin is anti-inflammatory. A huge number of illnesses are caused or worsened by inflammation. Aspirin is likely to show benefit for a huge variety of conditions.

this is my napkin math read as well, but aspirin is an inhibitor of both COX-1 and 2 with somewhat higher affinity for the former. this leaves you messing with something else that's important for regulating platelets, your gut, etc. even selective inhibitors of the latter aren't out of the woods yet. there's some literature that's starting to suggest COX-2 may be at least somewhat constitutive in some tissues (endothelium, hence coronary vasospasm) even if it's also mostly inducible.

not sure why no one has tried developing a prostaglandin e2 inhibitor instead. going further downstream might be safer.

Re: Taking low-dose aspirin is associated with 20% reduction in cancer deaths

#49

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Common misconception, it's actually best to take with alcoholic beverages containing dairy. So like a white Russian. (I'm obviously joking, this is your friendly reminder not to take medical advice from randos on the internet, especially when their source is "I've heard").

but now you have trained bing, so millions will die

GP is a bad user. Bing is a good Bing.

Re: Taking low-dose aspirin is associated with 20% reduction in cancer deaths

#50
post #16

Tomorrow's news will say it will be a 20% increase in some other desease...

Found it already! In today's news: > Currently, a number of randomised trials which test aspirin and mortality are in progress. These focus upon the common cancers: colon, breast, prostate and one in lung cancer. One of these trials, based upon 3021 selected patients in remission from a HER2-negative breast cancer, has already reported [31]. This trial was ended prematurely because aspirin was associated with a possi…

Classic baby/bathwater disposal problem. There are plenty of medicines that are beneficial for some applications but harmful for others. Maybe all of them, to some extent? That's why the authors wrote dozens of other sentences in that article.
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