What is the role of aspirin in preventing colorectal cancer? Elizabeth Tracey reports

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Aspirin’s benefits and harms in heart disease and colorectal cancer prevention have once again been examined by a federal workgroup, and Kimmel Cancer Center director William Nelson at Johns Hopkins says for younger people, who have been experiencing an uptick in colorectal cancer rates, using low dose aspirin is a maybe.

Nelson: If you’re likely to develop colorectal cancer at that age, you got a benefit if you took it for a while. The benefit seemed to be cancers that appeared at an older age because you started younger than that, so would that mean that you’d have to start in your twenties? And that’s why you do do clinical trials in the end. I suspect that in general the overall bleeding risk is a little bit less among men at that age. Women that age are still menstruating, whether there’s a problem with chronic low dose aspirin use I’m not aware. The more information you get the better decision you can make.  :33

As always, talk with your doctor to determine if low dose aspirin is for you. At Johns Hopkins, I’m Elizabeth Tracey.