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>Part of our immune defences - a white blood cell called a T-cell - can swoop in and destroy the spreading cancer as it tries to take root.

>But the study showed that another part of our blood - the platelets that normally stop bleeding - were suppressing the T-cells and making it harder for them to take out the cancer.

>Aspirin disrupts the platelets and removes their influence over the T-cells so they can hunt out the cancer.

There's a niche online health community which follows the work of a late Dr. Ray Peat, who have been touting the benefits of aspirin for a long time:

https://raypeat.com/articles/aging/aspirin-brain-cancer.shtm...

Some of Dr. Peat's disciples have even begun their own independent cancer research (in mice) trying to prove efficacy of far more basic interventions:

https://x.com/haidut/status/1751716166387597730

I've been an observer of this sphere since ~2017, have implemented various Peat-related concepts towards my own health and fitness, to overall positive results. What's interesting is seeing more and more of these theories - under the theme of 'bioenergetics' - starting to be proven out even in conventional research.

I looked up Ray Peat because I was unfamiliar with him.

I'm sure some of his advice has backing to it. A lot of it doesn't. A good amount of it even has a fair body of evidence against the claim (like Alzheimer's can be stopped by using tobacco).

This is classic highlighting hits while ignoring misses. A quack that tells you to exercise and eat 5lbs of raw chicken every day can be right about the exercise, that doesn't mean their raw chicken diet is also valid.

"There is some evidence that exposure to nicotine, which is one of the components of cigarette smoke, can actually reduce the risk of dementia. Such reports may be useful in indicating possible research directions for drug design.

However, nicotine intake through smoking would not be beneficial. Any positive effects would be outweighed by the significant harm caused by the other toxic components in cigarette smoke." https://www.alzheimers.org.uk/about-dementia/managing-the-ri...

I mean, I don't care about all of the failed Tesla work, nor his odd life. But I sure do like my transmitted electricity.

Tesla had a scientific foundation for inventions like alternating current.

He didn't just story-tell about how they might be true like how Peat claims walnuts are carcinogenic due to unsaturated fat and sucrose cures disease and saturated fat actually reduces CVD.

Ray Peat is as quacky as health quacks can get. Completely nuts.

Can you provide some examples that back up your statement?

Edit: Some people are getting angry (and in some cases, deleting their comments). Let me be clearer: I have no idea who Ray Peat is. The OP commented that Peat is a "quack" and I was just asking why, because they didn't provide any supporting documentation.

Many appear to be public information. Here are some listed on his RationalWiki entry:

Avocados

Peat claimed that avocados are carcinogenic because they contain a lot of unsaturated fat.[8] Like all the other nonsense he spouted, he failed to back up this ridiculous claim with any scientific evidence.

Orange juice

Peat was a big fan of orange juice which he said is "anti-estrogenic".[41] He also claimed that orange juice is good because it raises people's cholesterol.[42] There is not any evidence in the medical literature that shows orange juice consumption raises cholesterol. Studies have found the opposite, as it lows LDL-c and total cholesterol.[43][44] A 2022 review of clinical trials found that orange juice significantly reduces circulating total cholesterol levels.[45] Everything Peat said about foods should be fact-checked because in most cases he was entirely wrong in what he had claimed.

https://rationalwiki.org/wiki/Ray_Peat

> The team at the University of Cambridge said it was an exciting and surprise discovery that could eventually lead to cancer patients being prescribed the drug - but not yet and people are advised against just taking the pills themselves.

While the Ethics Panel and solicitors may have ordered the researchers to say that, I'm thinking that anyone with serious cancer should (1) start taking aspirin, (2) read a bit about aspirin side-effects and contra-indications, then (3) let their doctor know that they did (1) and (2).

There are risks to taking aspirin everyday, including an increased risk of hemorrhagic (bleeding) stroke, so it's important to weigh the pros and cons. That is difficult before sufficient research has been done to identify who benefits and how much, but it's certainly something to consider.

Note my prior "... anyone with serious cancer should (1) ..." disclaimer.

If the cancer that you already have is (say) 10% likely to kill you, then waiting several years - for researchers to nail down details - is likely far riskier than taking aspirin now.

(No, you can't be an idiot about it. Aspirin at 50g/kg would kill you faster than any cancer could, etc., etc.)

OK, but...

I am not a doctor. I don't even play one on TV. But if I understand correctly, there are two types of strokes: hemorrhagic strokes (strokes caused by bleeding in the brain) and... I don't know the technical term, but clot-based strokes (a blood clot blocks an artery in the brain). And if I understand correctly, clot-based strokes are something like 80% of strokes - they're four times as likely as hemorrhagic strokes.

So isn't aspirin a net win anyway? You may increase your odds of a hemorrhagic stroke, but decrease your odds of the other kind of stroke, and the other kind is more common. (Unless you have some reason to think that you are more susceptible to hemorrhagic strokes than the other kind.)

Corrections welcome, especially ones with data.

Note well: This is not medical advice. Consult a doctor, not randos on the internet.

You are assuming the pre-intervention incidence of each type of stroke is a guide to the effect size of the intervention on each, which isn't, as a rule, a justified assumption.

I'm not a doctor either, just a postgrad pre-med student with a heart problem (so I read a lot about the heart). I know just enough to be dangerous, but I do know you're right about the two types of stroke and the benefit of aspirin in preventing ischemic strokes (clots).

And until recently, daily aspirin was recommended for that, even for people with no history of heart disease. But AIUI, now the American Heart Association (2019) [1], U.S. Preventive Service Task Force (2022) [2], and the European Society of Cardiology (2019) [3] all say that for people with no history of cardiovascular disease, daily aspirin has little to no net benefit in younger patients and increases mortality in older patients.

Of course, the possibility of preventing metastasis adds another benefit, and may tip the balance back in favor of aspirin therapy.

1: https://www.ahajournals.org/doi/10.1161/CIR.0000000000000678

2: https://www.acc.org/latest-in-cardiology/articles/2022/04/27...

3: https://www.escardio.org/static-file/Escardio/Guidelines/Pub...

Is there any data about the cancer incidence in people who had to take aspirin daily for those reasons ?

I did it for a few weeks but I started having nosebleeds daily so I stopped.

As I recall, there are some studies that show that a daily baby aspirin can be helpful for general heart health. I you were taking an adult aspirin, that may have been the issue.

A few years ago my grandma had cancer and was told by the hospital doctor to take daily baby dosage aspirin.

I think it's safe to say if it's recommended for cancerous old folks, it's safe to take for average people.

It's just a matter of dosage.

> I think it's safe to say if it's recommended for cancerous old folks, it's safe to take for average people.

I'm not sure why you would think that. There are many things we are willing to prescribe to older people because they are unlikely to suffer long-term negative effects.

It's the teenage asprin that you really have to watch out for. It just doesn't know when to stop!

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I don’t understand why they are still referring to acetylsalicylic acid (ASA) as Aspirin. Aspirin today can be a mixture of ingredients but what the described effects are about is ASA.

From the first line of Wikipedia:

"Aspirin is the genericized trademark for acetylsalicylic acid (ASA)"

That's why

If I was a copy editor and read the draft title "Scientists crack how acetylsalicylic acid might stop cancers from spreading" I would stop the author right there.

A mixture of ingredients? If you mean a standard aspirin tablet, it will have fillers and binders in it to keep the tablet together and help it break down in the GI tract and etc, but in essence anything labeled aspirin is acetylsalicylic acid.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Aspirin

If the title said "acetylsalicylic acid (ASA)", I would not have known what they were talking about. But I do know what Aspirin is.

News to me, what else do they put in it?

ASA is an unfortunate acronym here: You might consider the Accessible Surface Area of immune-system proteins, in accessing interaction with the aspirin molecule!

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I hate these types of headlines that omit an important part of the context: The study was conducted in mice. We're not mice.

The results are encouraging but in no way conclusive for humans. They open for the opportunity for broader studies, studies in humans. That's all they do.

The thing is we already know that it works on human.

https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/22440947/

The question was how it works and as far as I know you can't legally yet use genetically engineered humans to suppress a gene, induce cancer and test a theory.

How would you test this theory on human (safely) ?

How are treatments tested on humans safely?

Select some cancer patients and ask their consent to some novel treatment with Aspirin?