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Hippocrates used it. Just like Pliny the Elder – and then Galen of Pergamos, perhaps the greatest physician-scientist of antiquity. Transmitted by the Greeks and Romans, the Sumerians, the Assyrians and the Egyptians, the remedy taken from the bark of a willow tree had extraordinary powers to reduce pain, swelling and even fever . It was said that Pliny had burned the bark and turned the ash into a paste that he had then used to remove the corns.
In 1763, the good Reverend Edward Stone of Oxfordshire (who also passed by Edmund) wrote a letter to the Right Honorable George Parker, second Earl of Macclesfield (and, especially, to the President of the Royal Society), detailing the remarkable antipyretic power of the substance, which he obtained by drying the willow bark for three months next to a bread oven and then pounding it into a fine powder.
(Monty Python fans will enjoy reading Stone's original letter, published in the Royal Society Procedure: "…About years ago, I accidentally touched him, and I was fascinated by his extraordinary bitter notes, which immediately left me feeling foolish. properties of the Peruvian bark. ")
A Frenchman, Charles Frédéric Gerhardt, managed to synthesize acetylsalicylic acid, an active chemical, but never marketed it. Years later, however, a German chemist working at Bayer synthesized it again. This time, in 1897, the natural remedy, 2,000 years old, was renamed under the now known name of aspirin.
Even then, it has almost never been on the market. Bayer colleagues were more enthusiastic about the idea of offering another drug synthesized at Bayer the same year. (Called "heroin", it was to be sold as a "cure for cough".) Aspirin, however, survived the company's internal policy – and that's a very good thing.
Witness today, when it's not one, but two scientific articles published in the journal JAMA Oncology, has unveiled even more convincing evidence in support of the very rare status of aspirin as a miracle drug.
In the first article, Dr. Shelley Tworoger and her colleagues, lead authors, conducted a prospective analysis based on data from 205,498 women followed for about three and a half decades by two ongoing epidemiological studies (the well-known Nursing's Health Studies I and II). In short, investigators questioned women about their use of aspirin and other nonsteroidal anti-inflammatory drugs (NSAIDs) without aspirin over time, and then followed these women to determine who had developed a Ovarian cancer.
The results are striking. The research team found that women who regularly took (more than twice a week) low-dose aspirin (less than 100 mg) had a 23% lower risk of developing cancer. # 39; ovary. Ovarian cancer, which is most often a silent killer – evolving without notice in the body for years before being caught – is the fifth leading cause of cancer death in American women. According to estimates by the American Cancer Society, this year, 22,240 new cases of the disease will be diagnosed in the United States and 14,070 women will die. (For more information, see the special section beginning on page 28 of the organization's latest report. Facts and figures about cancer.)
Notably, people taking regular standard doses of aspirin showed no risk reduction – and other types of NSAIDs, used frequently, seemed to have an opposite effect to that of low-dose aspirin. . "We have actually seen a suggestion that there could be an increased risk of very frequent and long-term use of non-aspirin NSAIDs," said Tworoger, principal investigator at the Moffitt Cancer Center, at A telephone interview this afternoon. .
The study, in a significant way, builds on previous work that Tworoger and others have done, suggesting that aspirin might help protect against ovarian cancer – as well as the tremendous work showing that aspirin may play a similar role in chemo-prevention in colorectal cancer, other cancers. – and, of course, in heart disease.
Now add another cancer to the list, at least temporarily. In addition, today (and in the same journal, as I have mentioned), Dr. Andrew Chan and his colleagues have published a study demonstrating that "long – term use of drugs," said Dr. Aspirin appears to be associated with a reduced risk of hepatocellular carcinoma, or liver cancer. Contrary to the findings of the Tworoger study, however, the measured risk reduction appears to increase with the dose consumed and the duration of use.
It is important to note that any potential benefit associated with taking aspirin should be carefully weighed against the risk of increased bleeding, which can be particularly risky for some people. Therefore, consult your doctor before taking this medicine (or any other medicine) on your own.
"But for me," says Tworoger, "one of the most interesting aspects of this finding is that some women are already advised to take low-dose aspirin regularly to prevent cardiovascular disease. It is now proven that this could help prevent ovarian cancer. "
And there is more and more evidence that the world's first miracle drug could be its best.
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