Daily Aspirin intake slashes colon cancer relapse risk by 55% • Hacker News Board

Re: Daily Aspirin intake slashes colon cancer relapse risk by 55%

#11

Post by leakycap » Sat, Sep 20, 2025, 12:43 AM UTC

add-sub-mul-div wrote: post #9

leakycap wrote: post #2

... "with a certain type of genetic alteration in the tumor." This genetic alteration is found in slightly more than 1/3 of patients. I guess "Anti-inflammatory medication for 3 years after colorectal surgery reduces relapse risk for 55% of 38% of patients" doesn't have the same hopeful ring to it, but I'd prefer honesty.

You quoted the first sentence of the article. The headline is not supposed to contain all information from the article. We are not better off with a norm that we refuse to read past the headline and therefore consider the first paragraph of the actual article to be hidden.

I read the article, hence why I immediately noticed the disconnect. Mary Had a Little Lamb doesn't tell the whole story, but it doesn't say Mary's Magic Lamb Does Her Homework, either.

I guess intellectual dishonesty in links is so common some people don't even care anymore.

Re: Daily Aspirin intake slashes colon cancer relapse risk by 55%

#12

Post by sudoshred » Sun, Sep 21, 2025, 1:39 AM UTC

mannyv wrote: post #10

For two specific groups, aspirin reduces the recurrence of colorectal cancer by around 50%. Group a: 7.7% with aspirin vs 14.1% recurrence without aspirin. Group b: 7.7% with aspirin vs 16.8% recurrence without aspirin. What's nice is that these are real occurrences, not relative risk percentages. They don't need fuzzy numbers to make their results significant. Of course, there's also the line at the bottom: "Severe…

How severe? Worse than colon cancer?

Re: Daily Aspirin intake slashes colon cancer relapse risk by 55%

#13

Post by coldtea » Sun, Sep 21, 2025, 8:35 PM UTC

leakycap wrote: post #8

coldtea wrote: post #7

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Nope, pedantic is also focusing on taking something literally, when it's an obvious device to make a point. > The fact this is your takeaway, even after I used numeric values to explain the overpromise of the headline... wow I covered the overpromise and even explained why it's still a big enough development. This part was making another point that also went wooooosh (about how such findings rarely materialize to tre…

> why it's still a big enough development. It seems we agree: the hyperbolic, misleading headline wasn't necessary. I appreciate our interaction as a reminder that even numbers do not clearly communicate information to everyone. This will help me to remember I should exercise caution in what I write to make the point abundantly clear. I would never want to put end users in situations where they might harm themselves…

>I would never want to put end users in situations where they might harm themselves by taking a pill daily based on a poorly worded headline on a tech website. Good luck to you and your new aspirin regimen, though!

People who would do that because of some single paper (most don't replicate anyway), without checking with a doctor, and taking into account general consensus on the matter, are going to do shit like that anyway, this individual headline wont make any difference.

Re: Daily Aspirin intake slashes colon cancer relapse risk by 55%

#14

Post by nikolay » Mon, Sep 22, 2025, 5:45 AM UTC

mannyv wrote: post #10

For two specific groups, aspirin reduces the recurrence of colorectal cancer by around 50%. Group a: 7.7% with aspirin vs 14.1% recurrence without aspirin. Group b: 7.7% with aspirin vs 16.8% recurrence without aspirin. What's nice is that these are real occurrences, not relative risk percentages. They don't need fuzzy numbers to make their results significant. Of course, there's also the line at the bottom: "Severe…

People don't know how to take aspirin! There are side effects other than stomach bleeding, but this most frequent issue is easily countered by taking pure aspirin together with DGL or vitamin C... or maybe both. I've heard it from a person who's in aspirin research taking it with gelatin also addresses the potential bleeding.

Re: Daily Aspirin intake slashes colon cancer relapse risk by 55%

#15

Post by leakycap » Mon, Sep 22, 2025, 6:04 AM UTC

coldtea wrote: post #13

leakycap wrote: post #8

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> why it's still a big enough development. It seems we agree: the hyperbolic, misleading headline wasn't necessary. I appreciate our interaction as a reminder that even numbers do not clearly communicate information to everyone. This will help me to remember I should exercise caution in what I write to make the point abundantly clear. I would never want to put end users in situations where they might harm themselves…

> I would never want to put end users in situations where they might harm themselves by taking a pill daily based on a poorly worded headline on a tech website. Good luck to you and your new aspirin regimen, though! People who would do that because of some single paper (most don't replicate anyway), without checking with a doctor, and taking into account general consensus on the matter, are going to do shit like that…

> this individual headline wont make any difference

Ah, yes, the excuse that individual actions don't matter in the larger scheme of the world. Dismissing things is convenient when you don't want to think about them anymore.