A new study finds that people who took a low-dose aspirin daily for at least three years were 25 percent less likely to develop cancer than people who didn’t take it.

Aspirin also reduced the risk of death from cancer by nearly 40 percent after five years, the researchers said.

The reduced risk of death may be due in part to a decrease in cancer’s ability to spread to other organs. In a second study, researchers found a daily dose of aspirin led to a 36 percent reduction in the risk of being diagnosed with cancer that spread to other organs.

This suggests aspirin is likely “to be an effective additional treatment after the diagnosis of cancer,” Dr. Peter Rothwell, one of the study’s researchers and a neurologist at the University of Oxford in England, told MyHealthNewsDaily.

Taking a daily aspirin has been found to have a variety of health benefits, said Dr. Stephanie Bernik, chief of surgical oncology at Lenox Hill Hospital in N.Y., including a reduced risk of heart attack and stroke.

However, more research is needed before aspirin can be recommended to reduce the risk of cancer. That’s because the new study analyzed data from previous studies that were not designed to test the effect of aspirin on cancer prevention. “A study has to be specifically designed to prove a point,” said Bernik, who was not involved in either new study.

People should speak with their doctors before deciding to take a daily aspirin, Bernik said.

Cancer prevention

Previous studies have found aspirin reduces the risk of death from cancer over the long term. However, the effect of aspirin on cancer in the short term, as well as its effect on developing cancer in the first place, was less clear.

Rothwell and colleagues analyzed data from 51 studies involving more than 77,000 people, in which about half of participants were randomly assigned to take a daily dose of aspirin.

There were fewer deaths among the people assigned to take a daily aspirin, compared with people who did not take aspirin (562 deaths versus 664 deaths).

In an analysis of six of the studies in which people took low doses of aspirin, there were three fewer cases of cancer yearly per 1,000 people in the aspirin group, compared with the group that did not take aspirin, but this effect did not show up until participants had taken aspirin for three years.

Side effects

Aspirin has side effects, including an increased risk of gastrointestinal bleeding. However, the researchers found that after about three years, the increased risk of major bleeding went away, as did aspirin’s heart benefits. What was left was the reduced risk of cancer.

“For most individuals, the risk-benefit calculus of aspirin seems to favor aspirin’s long-term anti-cancer benefit,” Drs. Andrew Chan and Nancy Cook, both of Brigham and Women’s Hospital in Boston, wrote in an editorial accompanying the study.

Because the findings are new, it will take time for researchers to decide whether guidelines should be changed to include a recommendation of aspirin for cancer prevention, said Eric Jacobs, strategic director of pharmacoepidemiology at the American Cancer Society. Such guidelines would have to take into account who is most likely to benefit from the recommendation, Jacobs said.

The study and editorial will be published tomorrow (March 21) in the journal the Lancet. The study had no funding and no input from drug companies, but the lead researcher has has been paid by several pharmaceutical companies for his work with them.

Pass it on:  A daily aspirin has health benefits, but it’s too soon to recommend it for cancer prevention.

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Aspirin has previously been hailed as a “wonder drug” and has come to be regarded as a “just in case” self-medicated measure for millions of healthy patients.

Experts had called for everyone over the age of 45 to consider taking a daily dose of aspirin because it could reduce the risk of a heart attack or stroke and prevent some cancers.

Researchers yesterday called for guidelines to be revised after they found the risk of internal bleeding outweighed potential benefits.

The study of 100,000 healthy people who have taken aspirin, the largest of its kind, found that the drug reduced the risk of heart attacks by about 10 per cent. The risk of “non-trivial” bleeding rose by a third.

The findings, published in the Archives of Internal Medicine suggest that, while one heart attack or stroke was averted for every 120 people treated with aspirin over a six-year period, one in 73 people suffered potentially significant bleeding.

The researchers at St George’s, University of London, recommended that people who have suffered a heart attack or stroke and are therefore at a high risk of another should still be routinely prescribed aspirin.

However, they raised concerns about the millions of otherwise healthy people taking aspirin in an attempt to prevent their first heart attack or stroke.

The study also found that the risk of dying from cancer was not affected, despite recent studies showing that the drug could prevent bowel cancers.

It has previously been suggested that aspirin could be included in a future “polypill” that everyone over the age of 50 could take to prevent heart problems.

Professor Kausik Ray, the lead author, said: “The beneficial effect of aspirin on preventing future cardiovascular disease events in people with established heart attacks or strokes is indisputable. We urge people with these conditions not to discontinue their medication unless advised to do so by their physicians for valid reasons.

“However, the benefits of aspirin in those individuals not known to have these conditions are far more modest than previously believed and, in fact, aspirin treatment may potentially result in considerable harm due to bleeding.”

A spokesman for the Aspirin Foundation said: “We have had no opportunity to review this new publication in scientific detail. Our first response is that it is at odds with so much existing medical opinion.”

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AS festive-coloured pine trees start filling family lounges, scientists have revealed a radically different new use for the common forest tree.

Auckland researchers have extracted an antioxidant from the bark of the pine tree they have found can help treat people with a traumatic brain injury.

The extract, called Enzogenol, was given 60 people with a brain injury over three months, with results suggesting the drug can boost memory and improve attention span.

AUT stroke specialist Professor Valery Feigin said patients who took it were less likely to forget people’s names or basic directions, common problems for brain injury sufferers.

The results were great news as there were few evidence-based treatments for people with mild brain injury problems, she said.

“Other than brain exercises, there are limited treatments available to improve damage,” said Prof Feigin, who is hoping to launch a large-scale trial on the back of the successful pilot study.

Brain injuries caused by stroke, motor vehicle crashes, sports injuries, assaults and falls are the leading cause of disability and death in New Zealand, costing the country about $NZ100 million ($76.07 million) a year.

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The hormones are known as T3, or triiodothyronine, and T4, or thyroxine. They are regulated by the U.S. Food and Drug Administration and intended for use only in prescription medication because they can cause significant health issues, such as an increase in heart rate, heart irregularities and palpitations, nervousness, and diarrhea, Dr. Bernet says.

“These hormones have effects throughout the body, which is why they are controlled,” he says.

Not only did nine of the 10 supplements studied have animal hormone, the amount of hormones in the products varied significantly, sometimes exceeding doses used for individual patients and comparable to levels found in prescription thyroid medication, Dr. Bernet says.

The supplements likely do not give most people the results they are seeking, such as weight loss or less fatigue, he says.

“The amount of thyroid hormone a normal person would have to take to lose weight would be dangerously high and there is no evidence that use of thyroid hormone effectively treats fatigue when used in people without actual hypothyroidism,” he says.

Because physicians have seen a number of abnormal thyroid tests from patients using over-the-counter supplements, Dr. Bernet became interested in this issue when he heard reports of such cases as chairman of the American Thyroid Association’s public health committee. He worked with researchers including endocrinologists at Walter Reed Army Medical Center, where he practiced at the time.

The researchers bought 10 commercially available thyroid supplements from stores or websites and used high-pressure liquid chromatography to separate and identify the chemical components of T3 and T4. Nine of the 10 contained T3 and five of them would deliver as much, or more, than 50 percent of the total amount of T3 produced by the body daily.

Four of the 10 supplements contained T4, and some of those contained a dose that could be twice as much as what an adult needs each day. Only one supplement had no detectable T3 or T4.

The results show there is a need for more effective monitoring of the contents of over-the-counter thyroid support products and more patient education about the products’ potential health risks, Dr. Bernet says.

The study was funded by the Department of Clinical Investigation at Walter Reed Army Medical Center, which, in August 2011, became the Walter Reed National Military Medical Center.

But don’t reach for the catsup, vinegar or mayonnaise. The research was not done with French fries, America’s favorite potato, but with potatoes cooked without oil in a microwave oven. Although researchers used purple potatoes, they believe that red-skin potatoes and white potatoes may have similar effects.

“The potato, more than perhaps any other vegetable, has an undeserved bad reputation that has led many health-conscious people to ban them from their diet,” said Joe Vinson, Ph.D., who headed the research. “Mention ‘potato’ and people think ‘fattening, high-carbs, empty calories’. In reality, when prepared without frying and served without butter, margarine or sour cream, one potato has only 110 calories and dozens of healthful phytochemicals and vitamins. We hope our research helps to remake the potato’s popular nutritional image.”

In the new study, 18 patients who were primarily overweight/obese with high blood pressure ate 6-8 purple potatoes (each about the size of a golf ball) with skins twice daily for a month. They used purple potatoes because the pigment, or coloring material, in fruits and vegetables is especially rich in beneficial phytochemicals. Scientists monitored the patients’ blood pressure, both systolic (the higher number in a blood pressure reading like 120/80) and diastolic. The average diastolic blood pressure dropped by 4.3 percent and the systolic pressure decreased by 3.5 percent, said Vinson, who is with the University of Scranton in Pennsylvania and has done extensive research on healthful components in foods. The majority of subjects took anti-hypertensive drugs and still had a reduction in blood pressure. None of the study participants gained weight.

Vinson said that other studies have identified substances in potatoes with effects in the body similar to those of the well-known ACE-inhibitor medications, a mainstay for treating high blood pressure. Other phytochemicals in potatoes occur in amounts that rival broccoli, spinach and Brussels sprouts, and also may be involved, Vinson added.

Unfortunately for French fry and potato chip fans, those high cooking temperatures seem to destroy most of the healthy substances in a potato, leaving mainly starch, fat and minerals. Potatoes in the study were simply microwaved, which Vinson said seems to be the best way to preserve nutrients.

The purple potatoes used in the study are becoming more widely available in supermarkets and especially in specialty food stores and farmers’ markets. Vinson said that he strongly suspects a future study using white potatoes, now in the planning stages, will produce similar results. Funding for the study came from the United States Department of Agriculture Agricultural Research Service (USDA-ARS) State Cooperative Potato Research Program.

The results of this update appeared Oct. 12, 2011, in the Journal of the American Medical Association.

SWOG, an international network of research institutions, carried out SELECT at more than 400 clinical sites in the United States, Puerto Rico, and Canada. SELECT was funded by the National Cancer Institute (NCI) and other institutes that comprise the National Institutes of Health.

“Based on these results and the results of large cardiovascular studies using vitamin E, there is no reason for men in the general population to take the dose of vitamin E used in SELECT as the supplements have shown no benefit and some very real risks,” said Eric Klein, M.D., a study co-chair for SELECT, and a physician at the Cleveland Clinic. “For now, men who were part of SELECT should continue to see their primary care physician or urologist and bring these results to their attention for further consideration.”

The SELECT study began in 2001 and included over 35,000 men. It was started because earlier research had suggested that selenium or vitamin E might reduce the risk of developing prostate cancer. However, based on an independent safety monitoring review in autumn 2008, participants were told to stop taking their study supplements because it had become clear that the trial would never produce the 25 percent reduction in prostate cancer the study was designed to show with the use of these supplements. In 2010, the study sites were closed and over half of the participants consented to have their health monitored via mail questionnaires. Now, because of this latest finding, researchers are encouraging all participants to consider taking part in long-term study follow-up so investigators can continue to track outcomes.

SELECT was undertaken to substantiate earlier, separate findings from studies in which prostate cancer risk was not the primary outcome. A 1998 study of male smokers in Finland who took 50 I.U. of vitamin E daily to prevent lung cancer, showed 32 percent fewer prostate cancers in men who took the supplement. A 1996 study of men and women with a history of skin cancer who took selenium for prevention of disease recurrence showed that men who took the supplement had 52 percent fewer prostate cancers than men who did not take the supplement.

Based on these and other findings, men were recruited to participate in SELECT. They were randomly assigned to take one of four sets of supplements or placebos, with more than 8,000 men in each group. One group took both selenium and vitamin E; one took selenium and a placebo that looked similar to vitamin E; one took vitamin E and a placebo that looked similar to selenium; and the final group received placebos of both supplements. Men who took selenium alone or vitamin E and selenium together were also more likely to develop prostate cancer than men who took a placebo, but those increases were small and possibly due to chance.

“SELECT has definitively shown a lack of benefit from vitamin E and selenium supplements in the prevention of prostate cancer and has shown there is the potential for harm,” said Lori Minasian, M.D., study co-author and acting director of NCI’s Division of Cancer Prevention. “Nevertheless, this type of research has been critically important to understanding the potential benefits and risks from supplements.”

SELECT researchers are now measuring the amount of vitamin E, selenium, and other nutrients in the blood of participants when they joined the trial, to see if the effect of the supplements depended upon this baseline level of micronutrient. Other researchers are looking at single nucleotide polymorphisms, which are DNA changes known as SNPs, to see if a change in one or more genes could affect cancer risk or perhaps increase a man’s risk of developing prostate cancer while taking vitamin E.

The participant samples come from the study biorepository of blood and toe nail clippings which, when coupled with the extensive clinical information on participants, is a vital resource for further study. “SWOG is soliciting proposals from researchers nationwide to use the SELECT biorepository to help answer the biological question of why vitamin E increased risk instead of decreasing it,” said Laurence Baker, D.O., study co-author and chairman of SWOG. “There are many more questions raised by these study results than we have answers for, and thus the need for further investigation.”

Except for skin cancer, prostate cancer is the most common type of cancer in men in the United States. The current lifetime risk of prostate cancer for American men is 16 percent. In 2011, there will be an estimated 240,890 new cases of prostate cancer and 33,720 deaths from this disease in the United States.

SELECT has been funded by NCI with additional monies from the National Center for Complementary and Alternative Medicine, and with sub-studies funded and conducted by the National Heart, Lung, and Blood Institute; the National Institute of Aging; and the National Eye Institute at NIH.

For an updated Q&A on SELECT [available upon request prior to 10/11/2011], please go tohttp://www.cancer.gov/newscenter/qa/2008/selectqa

“Randomized controlled trials and other studies have demonstrated that periconceptional [the period from before conception to early pregnancy] folic acid supplements reduce the risk of neural tube defects. To our knowledge, none of the trials have followed up their sample to investigate whether these supplements have effects on neurodevelopment that are only manifest after birth,” the authors write.

Christine Roth, M.Sc., Clin.Psy.D., of the Norwegian Institute of Public Health, Oslo, and colleagues conducted a study to investigate whether maternal use of folic acid supplements was associated with a reduced risk of severe language delay among offspring at age 3 years. “Unlike the United States, Norway does not fortify foods with folic acid, increasing the contrast in relative folate status between women who do and do not take folic acid supplements,” the researchers write. Pregnant women were recruited for the study beginning in 1999, and data were included on children born before 2008 whose mothers returned the 3-year follow-up questionnaire by June 16, 2010. Maternal use of folic acid supplements within the interval from 4 weeks before to 8 weeks after conception was the exposure. The primary outcome measured for the study was children’s language competency at age 3 years as gauged by maternal report on a 6-point ordinal language grammar scale. Children with minimal expressive language (only 1-word or unintelligible utterances) were rated as having severe language delay.

The main analysis for the study included 38,954 children (19,956 boys and 18,998 girls). Of these children, 204 (0.5 percent) were rated as having severe language delay (159 [0.8 percent] boys and 45 [0.2 percent) girls). Children whose mothers took no dietary supplements in the specified exposure interval were the reference group (n = 9,052 [24.0 percent], with severe language delay in 81 children [0.9 percent]). Data for 3 patterns of exposure to maternal dietary supplements were: other supplements, but no folic acid (n = 2,480 [6.6 percent], with severe language delay in 22 children [0.9 percent]); folic acid only (n = 7,127 [18.9 percent], with severe language delay in 28 children [0.4 percent]); and folic acid in combination with other supplements (n = 19,005 [50.5 percent], with severe language delay in 73 children [0.4 percent]).

The researchers write that maternal use of supplements containing folic acid within the period from 4 weeks before to 8 weeks after conception was associated with a substantially reduced risk of severe language delay in children at age 3 years. “We found no association, however, between maternal use of folic acid supplements and significant delay in gross motor skills at age 3 years. The specificity provides some reassurance that there is not confounding by an unmeasured factor. Such a factor might be expected to relate to both language and motor delay.”

The authors add that to their knowledge, no previous prospective observational study has examined the relation of prenatal folic acid supplements to severe language delay in children.

“If in future research this relationship were shown to be causal, it would have important implications for understanding the biological processes underlying disrupted neurodevelopment, for the prevention of neurodevelopmental disorders, and for policies of folic acid supplementation for women of reproductive age.”

In the first of two studies, currently available in the online edition of theBritish Journal of Nutrition, researchers found that overall,taking either of two different types of fish oil supplement for three months had no consistent impact on mental function in 18 — 35-year-olds, however they did find evidence of reduced mental fatigue and faster reaction times. Contrary to popular belief, these results suggest that taking omega-3 or fish oil supplements may not have an immediate or measureable impact on mental performance in healthy young adults, possibly due to the fact that this population is already performing at its mental peak or that higher doses or longer than 12 weeks supplementation are required.

Interestingly, in the second of these studies it was found that taking DHA-rich fish oil over the same time period did increase blood flow to active areas of the brain during performance of similar mental tasks. The researchers claim these findings could have implications for mental function later on in life, as evidence suggests regularly eating oily fish or taking omega-3 supplements may prevent cognitive decline and dementia, and increased blood flow to the brain may be a mechanism by which this occurs.

As these results suggest benefits may be seen with longer term supplementation in older age groups, researchers now plan to investigate this in people between the ages of 50 and 70 to assess the impact of a fish oil supplement on their memory, mental performance and blood flow to the brain.

Lead researcher Dr Philippa Jackson said: “If we can pinpoint both the behavioural and brain blood flow effects of this fatty acid in older healthy people, then the benefits for those with mental degenerative conditions associated with normal aging could be that much greater.”

Researchers are hoping to recruit more people to take part in the study to investigate the effects of DHA in older people.

They are keen to hear from individuals who are generally healthy, living in or near the Newcastle area who feel their memory is not as good as it used to be and who don’t currently eat oily fish on a regular basis or take omega-3 supplements.

Participants will be asked to take a DHA-rich supplement for six months, for which they will receive £50 and a 12 month supply of the supplement.

The study adds to a growing debate about how to balance the dangers of sun exposure with the need for appropriate levels of vitamin D to prevent bone diseases such as osteoporosis and rickets.

“It’s not as simple as telling everyone to wear sunscreen,” said dermatologist Eleni Linos, MD PhD. “We may instead need to begin tailoring our recommendations to the skin tones and lifestyles of individual patients. It’s clearly a very complex issue.”

Linos, who is now an assistant professor of dermatology at the University of California-San Francisco, was a Stanford resident when the research was conducted. She is the first author of the research, published online Nov. 4 in Cancer Causes and Control. Assistant professor of dermatology Jean Tang, MD, PhD, is the senior author.

Vitamin D is produced by the skin in response to exposure to the ultraviolet rays in sunlight; too little of the vitamin causes bone weakening and rickets and possibly contributes to many other chronic diseases including cancer. Small amounts of vitamin D can also be acquired by drinking fortified milk, eating fortified breakfast cereals or eating fatty fish such as salmon, tuna and mackerel, as well as from over-the-counter dietary supplements. Although it’s not clear exactly how many people may be deficient in the vitamin, experts believe about 30 to 40 percent of the United States population may be affected.

Linos and Tang analyzed population-base data from the U.S. National Health and Nutrition Examination Survey collected by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention from 2003 to 2006. The survey included questions about sun-protective behavior, inquiring whether respondents frequently wore long sleeves, hats and sunscreen, and whether they sought out shade on sunny days. It also included each respondent’s race, as well as their blood levels of a form of vitamin D called 25-hydroxyvitamin D.

The researchers found that Caucasians who avoided the sun with clothing or stayed in the shade had blood levels of vitamin D that were about 3.5 and 2.2 nanograms per milliliter lower than those who did not report such behavior. In contrast, the association between sun avoidance and reductions in vitamin D levels in Hispanic or African-American survey-takers was not statistically significant. “This may be explained by the inherent pigmentation in darker skin, which acts as natural sun protection,” said Linos. (The researchers did not analyze Asians as a separate group.)

The researchers considered any respondent with blood levels of 20 nanograms per milliliter or below to be vitamin D deficient because lower levels have been associated with adverse health outcomes. They found that although about 40 percent of all survey participants were vitamin D deficient, the prevalence increased to 53 and 56 percent among those who wore long sleeves and stayed in the shade. Whites who wore long sleeves and stayed in the shade were twice as likely to be deficient in the vitamin as those who did not (odds ratios of 2.16 and 2.11, respectively).

Race affects vitamin D production because of differences in skin pigmentation. Highly pigmented skin protects against ultraviolet rays, but also leads to lower overall baseline levels of vitamin D in the blood and frequent vitamin D deficiency. In the current study, African-Americans who rarely took sun-protective measures had an average vitamin D blood level of about 14.5 nanograms per milliliter. Hispanics who didn’t avoid the sun had an average level of about 19.7 and sun-loving Caucasians, about 26.4. In contrast, those who frequently stayed in the shade had average levels of 14, 19.2 and 22.8 nanograms per milliliter, respectively.

“This confirms that the issue of vitamin D supplementation is increasingly important.” said Linos. She cautioned, however, against wholesale use of dietary supplements before more data has been generated; currently there are two large, randomized clinical trials testing the health effects of relatively high doses of vitamin D.

The real surprise came when Linos found that the reported use of sunscreen did not significantly affect vitamin D levels. Because sunscreens block the ultraviolet rays that trigger the vitamin’s production, it seems that regular usage should lower vitamin D in the blood.

“This finding was both interesting and surprising,” said Linos. The apparent contradiction is likely due to sunscreen users not using the protection effectively. “People are probably not applying it often or thickly enough,” she said. “Often, people use sunscreen when they anticipate getting a lot of sun exposure, unlike others who spend time in the shade in order to avoid the sun.”