7 July 2014
Aspirin - the wonder drug!
It's at times like these I really love anti-science people.
Pain killers are a fact of life; we are constantly bombarded by a litany of advertising exhorting us to buy "Brand X" painkillers, and most of them work pretty well, relieving a variety of pain, from broken bones to headaches.
Aspirin (acetylsalicylic acid) was one of the first developed. Unfortunately for many people since, heroin was developed around the same time as an alternative, thanks to aspirin acting as an anticoagulant and causing a few problems for haemophiliacs.
Anyway, aspirin eventually won the war against heroin and was the sole commercially-available analgesic for half a century. It took a back seat in the painkilling stakes to paracetamol, and later, ibuprofen and faded from view from about 1970 on. However, a few scientists had recognised that the anticoagulant properties of aspirin might just be useful in other medical situations and it was very quickly established that it could help prevent heart failure caused by clotting - almost 15% of heart attack fatalities are caused by this kind of obstructive heart disease.
Within the past 20 years, it has become established medical science that people over 40-45 should take 75mg of aspirin daily to help avoid obstructive heart disease, and the reduced numbers of people dying that way have been easily counted. It is factual that the simple act of taking a ablet a day will reduce your chances of dying of obstructive heart disease by about 15%.
Medical scientists have also realised that the number of people taking aspirin daily means that it is quite simple to determine whether the aspirin has any other positive or negative effects.
The results have been astonishing, with up to 50% reductions in chances of contracting some of the major killer cancers; those in the lung, stomach and bowel.
This is not some fairy tale, but solid scientific fact, backed by peer-reviewed analysis of many studies.
In the same way as the change to aspirin, previously unknown properties of the once horror-drug, thalidomide, are now paving the way for possible cures of cancer and HIV-related diseases.
Science never sleeps. It never gives up and cries enough, and the discoveries will never end.
Copyright © Alan Charman