The humble aspirin may have just added another beneficial effect beyond its ability to ameliorate headaches and reduce the risk of heart attacks: lowering colon cancer risk among people with high levels of a specific type of gene. [s]Medical Xpress[/s] reports that the ‘extraordinary finding’ comes from a multi-institutional team that analysed data and other material from two long-term studies involving nearly 128,000 participants. The researchers found that individuals whose colons have high levels of a specific gene product – 15-hydroxyprostaglandin dehydrogenase (15-PGDH) RNA – dramatically reduced their chances of developing colorectal cancer by taking aspirin. The analgesic provides no benefit to individuals whose colons show low levels of 15-PGDH. While previous trials and prospective studies had indicated that aspirin could reduce colorectal cancer risk, this retrospective study provides the first evidence to help explain why aspirin benefits some people, but not others.
[link url=http://medicalxpress.com/news/2014-04-aspirin-colorectal-cancer-specific-gene.html]Full Medical Xpress report[/link]
[link url=http://stm.sciencemag.org/content/6/233/233re2]Science Translational Medicine abstract[/link]