It’s long been known that a daily intake of aspirin could cut your risk of cancer dramatically. Heck, we’ve even written about it before here on The Inquisitr. And though it’s long been known, science hasn’t ever really been able to say why until just recently when Australian scientists discovered how these anti-inflammatory drugs actually prevent tumors from spreading.
The scientific breakthrough comes courtesy of researchers at Melbourne’s Peter MacCallum Cancer Centre, and gives us some interesting new leads on how to stop cancer before it gets a chance to stick. As stated above, though the benefits of aspirin as an over-the-counter cancer treatment have been known, the biological process of how that works hasn’t really been understood.
The co-lead author of the study Tara Karnezis said tumors secrete proteins and compounds called growth factors which attract blood and lymphatic vessels to their neighborhood, allowing the cancer to catch a ride and spread to other parts of the body. These growth factors also encourage lymphatic vessels — or “supply lines” — to widen, which also helps the cancer spread.
“But a group of drugs reverse the widening of the supply line and make it hard for the tumor to spread — at the end of the day that’s what kills people,” Karnezis said.
“This discovery unlocks a range of potentially powerful new therapies to target this pathway in lymphatic vessels, effectively tightening a tumor’s supply lines and restricting the transport of cancer cells to the rest of the body.”
Oncologists already usually include aspirin in a patient’s treatment regimen, Karnezis says that this discovery will allow scientists to develop better, more effective drugs.
What do you think of this new discovery?