Mechanism behind aspirin protective effect against colorectal cancer identified | Hacker News Reader

Mechanism behind aspirin protective effect against colorectal cancer identified

technologynetworks.com

89 pointsantiviral23 comments

Open articleView on HN

> Furthermore, aspirin can inhibit the progression of colorectal cancer

Cool! Might be too little too late for me, but hopefully this can help improve prognoses for other people soon.

Sorry to hear, wishing you well.

Thx! Also: get your asses checked early and often ;)

I was curious:

  "The jury is still out on whether aspirin has a future as a way to reduce the risk of cancers other than colorectal. Findings that regular aspirin use is associated with a reduced risk of other cancers "have been hit or miss,"...

https://www.cancer.gov/about-cancer/causes-prevention/resear...

This is encouraging. As someone with ulcerative colitis, I'm at increased risk for colorectal cancer, and cannot take NSAIDs, due to them paradoxically causing flare ups.

What are your intestines/gut made of? How come they never like rupture or leak?

In case you aren't aware, aspirin is also an NSAID that causes GI upset (including bleeding) for some people.

Cool. Now let's identify the root cause of the tumors.

Based on some cancers being caused by viruses, I'm guessing viruses would be a good place to start looking.

A co-author of this study actually mentions this in the article. It is definitely being looked into.

>"This is important because the p53-encoding gene is the most commonly inactivated tumor suppressor gene in colorectal cancer. In most other kinds of cancer, moreover, p53 is inactivated by mutations or viruses in the majority of cases."

Li-Fraumeni Syndrome is a genetic mutation of p53 that makes you more susceptible to various types of cancers. It's rare, in terms of number of people confirmed to have it, but is likely far more prevalent because it's not generally screened for. Interestingly, I'm told the reasons elephants don't (or rarely) get cancer is because they have 10 copies of p53, whereas humans only have 1.

Don't read this and start taking daily aspirin without talking to your doctor. Aspirin isn't like a vitamin, it can cause serious problems with daily usage.

Well. A lot of people could benefit from a cardiovascular protective dose of aspirin. Like everything, it has side effects.

Now whether that actually does anything to cancer risk or if it's too low... Needs further research.

Yes, but it's not a great idea to start that either without talking to your doctor first. There are sufficient potential risks with ongoing aspirin use that it's not a given that it will be a net benefit for you even though it is for a lot of people.

This advice has been withdrawn due to the serious side effects of a daily low dose aspirin.

https://www.uspreventiveservicestaskforce.org/uspstf/sites/d...

Namely?

Ulcers, bleeding, hemorrhagic stroke, kidney or liver failure, other allergic reactions and interactions with other drugs.

Sounds kinda like the standard american diet.

And when dietary issues or any number of other things causes gastric issues or any number of the other things on that list, there's a very real risk that nsaids can make them significantly worse for some patients.

You'll want to know if you're at risk before you start taking it regularly.

Maybe you can just put it in the other end?

That’s what she said. - Michael Scott

How did you know what I was planning??

"Aspirin induces the production of two tumor-suppressive microRNA molecules (miRNAs) called miR-34a and miR-34b/c. To do this, aspirin binds to and activates the enzyme AMPK, which in turn alters the transcription factor NRF2 such that it migrates into the cell nucleus and activates the expression of the miR-34 genes. For this activation to succeed, aspirin additionally suppresses the oncogene product c-MYC, which otherwise inhibits NRF2."

"Colorectal cancer (bowel cancer) is the third most common form of cancer worldwide, with around 1.9 million newly diagnosed cases and 900,000 deaths every year. Therefore, preventive substances represent an urgent clinical need. Aspirin/acetylsalicylic acid has proven to be one of the most promising candidates for the prevention of colorectal cancer. Among other findings, studies have shown that when patients with cardiovascular diseases took low doses of aspirin over several years, it reduced their risk of colorectal cancer. Furthermore, aspirin can inhibit the progression of colorectal cancer. Now a team led by Heiko Hermeking, Professor of Experimental and Molecular Pathology at LMU, has investigated which molecular mechanisms mediate these effects."

Reply on news.ycombinator.com