Aspirin's Preventive Colon Cancer Effect Depends On Genes

Photo Source


Posted By Neill Abayon


Taking a daily dose of aspirin helps lower the risk of colon cancer. However, a new study has found that the reduced risk of colorectal cancer is affected by a mutation of a gene called BRAF.

Colon cancer is a leading cause of cancer-related death worldwide. In 2008, there were 1.23 million new clinically diagnosed cases of colorectal cancer; over 608,000 people died from the disease that year.

The study, published in JAMA, identified that the association between daily aspirin use and reduced risk of colon cancer depends on specific gene mutations.

Data was collected from 2 large studies, the Nurses' Health Study and the Health Professionals Follow-Up Study, which included over 127,000 people.

The researchers, led by Reiko Nishihara of the Dana-Farber Cancer Institute in Boston, found that those who were at a reduced risk of developing colon cancer had the "typical", wild-type, form of the BRAF gene. Regular aspirin use lowered the risk of developing BRAF-wild-type cancer by 27 percent.


The full article here. 

Walnut trees emit aspirin-like chemical to deal with stress

Posted by Neill Abayon

Walnut trees respond to stress by producing significant amounts of a chemical form of aspirin, scientists have discovered.

The finding, by scientists at the National Center for Atmospheric Research (NCAR) in Boulder, Colo., opens up new avenues of research into the behavior of plants and their impacts on air quality, and also has the potential to give farmers an early warning signal about crops that are failing.

"Unlike humans, who are advised to take aspirin as a fever suppressant, plants have the ability to produce their own mix of aspirin-like chemicals, triggering the formation of proteins that boost their biochemical defenses and reduce injury," says NCAR scientist Thomas Karl, who led the study. "Our measurements show that significant amounts of the chemical can be detected in the atmosphere as plants respond to drought, unseasonable temperatures, or other stresses."

For years, scientists have known that plants in a laboratory may produce methyl salicylate, which is a chemical form of acetylsalicylic acid, or aspirin. But researchers had never before detected methyl salicylate in an ecosystem or verified that plants emit the chemical in significant quantities into the atmosphere.

The team of scientists reported its findings last week in the journal Biogeoscience. The research was funded by the National Science Foundation (NSF), NCAR's sponsor.

"Biosphere-atmosphere interactions are important to the understanding of the Earth system," said Cliff Jacobs, program director in NSF's Division of Atmospheric Sciences. "This fortuitous discovery of methyl salicyclate in quantities not anticipated adds to an already important study."

Read the full article here.