Major Study Debunks Aspirin, Vitamin E for Cancer Prevention
One of the largest and most thorough studies to date finds that regular use of low-dose aspirin and vitamin E won’t help prevent cancer — at least not in women. Results from the Women’s Health Study, published in two papers in this week’s Journal of the American Medical Association, provide some of the strongest evidence yet in the ongoing debate about the role of these compounds in cancer prevention.
The study, run by doctors at Harvard Medical School and Brigham and Women’s Hospital in Boston, involved nearly 40,000 healthy women 45 and older. Half of them were randomly assigned to take a low dose of aspirin (100 mg) every other day while the rest were given a placebo, or dummy pill. Likewise, half of them were randomly assigned to take 600 IU (international units) of vitamin E every other day, while the rest received a placebo.
Researchers tracked the women for an average of 10 years to determine whether either compound had an effect on cancer (the vitamin E portion also looked at its effect on heart disease).
They found no differences in overall cancer rates or cancer deaths between women who did or did not take aspirin or between women who did or did not take vitamin E.
The researchers also looked at rates of specific types of cancer, including breast, colon, and lung. Taking vitamin E did not have any effect on any type of cancer. Taking aspirin also did not have any effect on breast or colon cancer. Results for lung cancer were less clear; aspirin seemed to give women some protection from getting lung cancer, but the finding wasn’t statistically significant. Aspirin also seemed to protect women from dying from lung cancer, but the researchers said this finding might be due to chance.
