People above 45 years of age should consider a daily dose of aspirin to protect themselves from heart disease and cancer, researchers say.
Evidence is building that the benefits for the healthy middle-aged and elderly “far outweigh” the side-effects, according to the academics.In particular, individuals at a higher risk from these two major killers can take the painkiller as a preventive medicine, they added, reports the journal The Lancet.
The experts were addressing the Royal Society of Medicine a month after research from Oxford University showed that taking 75mg of aspirin daily for five years reduces the risk of getting bowel cancer by a quarter, and deaths from the disease by a third.
A 75mg dose is a quarter of the standard over-the-counter pill, according to the Telegraph.
Earlier studies had shown that a low daily dose could reduce the risk of developing heart diseases. Members of the panel said that the recent research was potentially of “enormous importance”.
Bowel, or colorectal, cancer is the third most common form of the disease in Britain, with 39,000 diagnoses annually and 16,000 deaths.
Research is also looking into whether aspirin could have a preventive effect on other types of cancer as well.
Combined, all cancers claim more than 150,000 lives in Britain every year, while cardiovascular disease accounts for some 200,000 deaths.
Prof Peter Rothwell, the Oxford neurologist who led the study, has started taking a daily dose of aspirin himself. He said: “I suspect that in five to 10 years’ time, we will be prescribing aspirin to all middle-aged people, and not only for the known vascular benefits.”
