The 4,000-year-old drug, most commonly used to treat pain, prevents certain tumours from forming and spreading across the body – findings that are already changing health policies.
Nick James, a British furniture maker in his mid-40s, first became concerned about his health after his mother died from cancer and his brother, along with several other family members, later developed bowel cancer. He opted to undergo genetic testing, and was found to be carrying a faulty gene which causes Lynch Syndrome, a condition that significantly increases the risk of developing that type of cancer.
Help came from an unexpected place, however, when James became the first person to sign up for a clinical trial that set out to test whether a daily dose of aspirin – the over-the-counter painkiller – could protect against developing cancer.
Depending on the form the genetic fault takes, 10-80% of people with Lynch syndrome will get bowel cancer during their lifetime. But so far, things are looking good for James. “He’s been on aspirin now with us for 10 years without any cancer so far,” saysJohn Burn, a professor of clinical genetics at Newcastle University, who led the trial.
It sounds almost impossible to believe, yet there have long been indications that the drug might reduce the chances of colorectal cancer spreading, or even occurring in the first place. In the past year, a string of trials and studies have strengthened such evidence. Some countries have already changed their medical guidelines to include the pill as a first line of protection for those who are most at risk (though experts stress that this should only be done under your doctor’s supervision). And we’re finally beginning to understand the reasons why it has such a mysterious effect.
Ancient roots
The latest findings offer a remarkable new twist in the tale of one of our oldest and most effective medications. In the late 19th Century, archaeologists uncovered 4,400-year-old clay tablets from the ancient Mesopotamian city of Nippur – in what is now Iraq – offering lists of a range of medicines crafted from botanical, animal and mineral compounds. Among them were instructions for a substance derived from the willow tree. We now know that this contains a chemical called salicin, which the body can convert into salicylic acid that helps to calm pain. It is similar in structure to modern aspirin – acetylsalicylic acid – but more irritating for the stomach. Other ancient civilizations – including the Egyptians, Greeks and Romans – also used the remedy.
Although aspirin works through a different mechanism compared to salicin, efforts to study its effect were instrumental in the development of the modern drug.
The modern study of the compound kicked off in 1763, when the English cleric Edward Stone wrote to the Royal Society to describe the fever-fighting properties of dried and powdered willow bark. About a century later, scientists managed to synthesize salicylic acid into the less corrosive acetylsalicylic acid, and put it on the market under the brand name Bayer.
Thanks to its blood-thinning effects, aspirin may be prescribed for people with a high risk of cardiovascular disease
