an apple a day
Doesn’t, in reality, keep the doctor away. It’s far more likely to be an aspirin that achieves that. We all know of the supposed wonder effect on heart disease, strokes and inflammation but last month, a landmark study published in The Lancet showed that an aspirin a day could reduce the risk of dying from cancer. Overall, death rates amongst those who have taken a daily dose of aspirin for five years were 34% lower than they were among those who had not. Stomach and bowel cancers showed even greater declines, with death rates falling by more than 50%.
How it achieves these almost miraculous results no one yet knows, but the active ingredient of aspirin, salicylic acid, and its medicinal qualities, have been known for centuries. Salicylic acid is found naturally in the bark and leaves of the willow tree and people have used both to alleviate pain and swelling from ancient times. The Babylonians in 1700BC used it extensively. As did the Egyptians some 1300 years later and the Greek physician Hippocrates (he of THE oath) declared pregnant women should take an infusion of willow leaves during labour.
For centuries the actual ingredient lay hidden from scientists until 1897 when Felix Hoffman finally isolated the Salicylic acid compound and the product aspirin was born. Unfortunately for Felix he also, at the same time, discovered and produced another supposed non-addictive wonder drug, heroin! Even worse for Bayer, the chemical company which by now owned the two products, they went on to produce the infamous Zyklon-B gas which was used in all Nazi death camps.
In 1971 John Vane, a British pharmacologist, realised that the impacts of aspirin were caused by the way it impeded prostaglandins, a powerful group of chemicals in the body. Prostaglandins produce pain, fevers and swelling but they also regulate the acidity of the stomach, and cause the blood to clot. By keeping the blood moving more fluidly, the risk of clots, a major cause of heart attacks and strokes, was significantly reduced. One theory as to aspirin’s effect on cancer growth is connected to the development of tumours in that it regulates the splitting and growth of cells; another that it directly attacks harmful and defective cancer cells once they are present; a third that a natural level of innate salicylic acid has disappeared from our diets and aspirin merely restores the body’s natural balance and defence system.
Which all beg the question should we start taking aspirin, one a day, every day? Well, on the basis of actions and words we have Professor Peter Rothwell, one of the authors of The Lancet study, who on the one hand states “these results do not mean all adults should start taking aspirin” and on the other hand, admits to now taking a daily dose himself! You pays you money, you takes your choice.
