COMMON OVER THE COUNTER DRUG INCREASES RISK OF CANCER!! Much like other “miracle” approaches to preventing disease from a pharmaceutical approach (i.e. hormone replacement therapy, statins), the use of aspirin to prevent a first heart attack is slowly losing steam. Bayer’s probably not happy.
So, an “aspirin a day” not only does NOT protect your heart, but in this small study, participants taken aspirin had much higher risk of irritation to their esophagus, ulcers and…cancer. Kind of scary? So what do the authors suggest? Endoscopic surveillance for patients on low dose aspirin. Huh? It doesn’t protect you from what you think it’s doing, and worse, puts you at increased risk of GI bleeds and cancer.
So don’t STOP taking the aspirin, just have a GI doc stick a scope down your esophagus every so often to make sure everything’s ok. Talk about making money hand over fist! I wish I could get paid to cause problems and than get paid to fix the problems I cause..