Researchers are finding that aspirin may help protect against cancer. But the connection is more complicated than that — it turns out that it has something to do with white blood cells as well.
When checking for any disease, doctors first look to the lymph nodes for indications. These are the glands located in your neck, groin, armpits, and other areas that swell up with white blood cells when your body is desperately trying to fight off a disease. White blood cells are crucial to your body’s defenses against infection. Without these germ blasters, you would never get over a cold.
White blood cell count, however, can also indicate more serious diseases, such as cancer. Previous research has proven that a consistently elevated white blood cell count can be an indicator that there is a malignant tumor somewhere in the body.
So, where does aspirin fit into all of this? Well, a recent study, published in the Archives of Internal Medicine, is showing that aspirin may have a protective effect in people who have abnormally high levels of white blood cells. The mechanism isn’t entirely understood, but researchers found that patients taking a weekly dose of aspirin had a reduced risk of death from any type of cancer.
The link between this analgesic and white blood cells seems to be due to inflammation. Aspirin’s anti- inflammatory properties are suspected to reduce the pro- inflammatory responses that white blood cells initiate in the body.
These pro-inflammatory responses may be linked to the occurrence of cancer. For a parallel, think of how C- reactive protein — a substance linked to diets high in saturated fat — creates inflammation that causes heart disease.
While doctors can’t be sure if aspirin can actually fully protect against cancer, its anti-inflammatory properties do provide some insight into future methods that may be used to curb the cancer risk. Hopefully, this will be another step forward in the search to find a way to prevent and conquer cancer.
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Tags: cancer risk, Diets
