A pill a day
Regular doses of baby aspirin may help prevent colorectal polyps, a precursor to cancer, previous studies have shown. But, because aspirin can have dangerous side effects, most notably gastrointestinal bleeding, researchers at the Harvard Medical School used data from the Nurses’ Health Study, the world’s longest-running major health study, to see if certain women benefited more from aspirin than others. What the researchers wanted to know: Does aspirin give some women more protection from colorectal polyps? What they did: The researchers compared aspirin use in two groups of women drawn from the Nurses’ Health Study: 500 women who had been diagnosed with a colon polyp from 1990 to 1998, and 500 women with similar demographic characteristics who had not been found to have polyps They also analyzed blood samples from all the women for variants of an enzyme called UGT1A6, which is known to help metabolize aspirin. What they found: Consistent with previous studies, regular use of aspirinas determined from questionnaires the women had filled out over the yearsreduced risk of colorectal polyps. However, in this study the researchers found the benefit occurred mainly for women with certain variants of UGT1A6. Women with the most common variation of the enzyme did not reduce their risk by taking aspirin. But, women with less common variants, which the researchers say cause them to metabolize aspirin slower, had a significant reduction in their risk of colon polyps. What it means to you: Women should not start or stop taking baby aspirin on the basis of this study, say the researchers. More work needs to be done first on how different variants of the gene affect the way different individuals metabolize aspirin. Caveats: Most of the women in the study were Caucasian women, so the results may not apply to other groups. In addition, the women self-reported their colorectal examinations, and, because some types of exams are more thorough than others, some of the women in the “no-polyps” group may have polyps that were not detected.
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