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LifestyleHealth & Wellness

Cancer risk lowered by taking aspirin twice a week, study finds. Digestive tract cancers show best results

  • Taking one or two aspirin a week helps ward off cancer, especially liver, stomach, pancreatic and bowel cancer, according to analysis of more than 100 studies
  • While taking aspirin reduces the risk of cancer, it can increase the risk of ulcers and stomach bleeding, doctors warn

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The risk of digestive tract cancers including liver cancer (above) can be reduced by taking aspirin, analysis of over 100 studies shows. Photo: Shutterstock
Lily Canter

Taking aspirin at least twice a week may help lower the risk of developing fatal diseases such as pancreatic, bowel, stomach and liver cancer, according to new research.

An analysis of 113 cancer studies, published in Annals of Oncology, found a link between aspirin and digestive tract cancers, which have particularly high death rates.

People who took at least one or two tablets a week had a reduction in the risk of these types of cancers of between 22 per cent and 38 per cent.

“These findings suggest there’s a beneficial effect of aspirin in the prevention of bowel and other cancers of the digestive tract. The results for bowel, oesophageal and pancreatic cancers are consistent with evidence from clinical trials on aspirin in the prevention of heart and blood vessel diseases,” said researcher Professor Carlo La Vecchia of the school of medicine at the University of Milan in Italy.

It’s important to consult your doctor to weigh up the risks and benefits of taking aspirin. Photo: Shutterstock
It’s important to consult your doctor to weigh up the risks and benefits of taking aspirin. Photo: Shutterstock
“The findings for pancreatic and other digestive tract cancers may have implications for the prevention of these highly lethal diseases. For pancreatic cancer, we found that risk of the disease declined by 25 per cent after five years among people who took aspirin regularly compared to those who did not,” he added.
More than a third of cancer-related deaths in China are of the digestive tract, and it has the ninth highest liver cancer rate in the world. Around 368,000 people in China die from liver cancer each year, and the country has almost half of global liver cancer cases. A further 180,000 people in China die from colorectal cancer each year, and China has the fourth highest pancreatic cancer rate among men in the world.
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