Scientists crack how aspirin might stop cancers from spreading

I liked Alone until it devolved into whoever came in with the most extra body mass and who could hibernate and conserve energy the most. Those who tried to hunt, build shelters, anything fun to show on TV, all would lose or be out early due to injury.

In your future children, maybe. Chasing down and editing the DNA of live somatic cells in a meaningful way is basically impossible.

Well, let’s start with solving diabetes, cancer, and various other diseases but if the arm is the thing we need to start with I would prefer android device please.

Well, we do evolve, but we've slowed the process with our ability to survive even when our bodies begin to fail us. In today's modern world, not reproducing is often a choice. However, evolution is no longer just about spreading genes—our advancements allow us to shape our own survival beyond natural selection.

I believe we are still evolving, but at least for now, in this brief period, our most significant "evolution" has been our ability to extend life and enhance its comfort—whether by tweaking bodily mechanisms or treating diseases. I hope that gene editing will be our next step in evolution, allowing us to take control of our biological limitations in ways we never could before.

All life evolves all the time, but there's less -- or practically no -- evolutionary pressure on humans anymore, so bigger changes don't happen as fast.

It's still constant change, but now it's a random walk where all directions are just about as good, so no mutation has a significant edge on survival, so the little changes tend to cancel each other out.

Nicotine is cheaply available in pill, patch and gum form.

However, nicotine intake through smoking would not be beneficial.

They are speaking generically of course, if someone was genetically predisposed, or showed other signs, it could make sense.

Devil of a time digging up the original source, but here it is.

> People who take aspirin, drink coffee, and use tobacco, have a much lower incidence of Alzheimer’s disease than people who don’t use those things. Caffeine inhibits brain phospholipase, making it neuroprotective in a wide spectrum of conditions. In recent tests, aspirin has been found to prevent the misfolding of the prion protein, and even to reverse the misfolded beta sheet conformation, restoring it to the harmless normal conformation. Nicotine might have a similar effect, preventing deposition of amyloid fibrils and disrupting those already formed (Ono, et al., 2002). Vitamin E, aspirin, progesterone, and nicotine also inhibit phospholipase, which contributes to their antiinflammatory action. Each of the amyloid-forming proteins probably has molecules that interfere with its toxic accumulation.

https://raypeat.com/articles/aging/madcow.shtml

You've weakened what Pete said to make him more reasonable (Motte and Baily). He didn't call for simple nicotine consumption, he called for tobacco use.

That's where the quackery enters. Taking something with a kernel of truth and then expanding it past what the research says into unsafe practices.

This is how a lot of quacks work.

> People who take aspirin, drink coffee, and use tobacco, have a much lower incidence of Alzheimer’s disease than people who don’t use those things.

Tesla had a scientific foundation for inventions like alternating current because he could do the experiments.

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 his other crockpot ideas.

When one or two of his ideas happen to sound reasonable, it's the research that should get the epistemic credit, not a guy shotgunning 100 dumb ideas. What about all his claims that go against the evidence like avocados being carcinogenic due to unsaturated fat?

This is a common problem with cult followings. Their followers keep bringing you claims to debunk, they watch them get debunked, and they never stop to ask themself why they are still playing human centipede with the guy shitting these claims into their mouth.

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

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...

The main risk from aspirin isn't hemorrhagic strokes, it's GI bleeds. There are other blood thinners that are considered safer at an appropriate dose, including warfarin (the same stuff that, at higher doses, is used as rat poison). Getting dose right with this stuff is very important and varies from individual to individual. Not something that's ethical to mess with at "shotgunning the population" level (or even as a DIY thing), IMO.. there's a reason they put iodine and folate in bread, but not this stuff.

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.

If you're already on cancer, I'm wondering if you're already on other medical interventions, and now I'm wondering how aspirin will interact with those.

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

If someone is dumb enough to down 9 lbs of Aspirin, it's on them.

More life-and-death advice from an Internet rando. I think I'll ask my doctor, who has examined me, has seen thousands of cancer patients, studied the human body, health, and cancer for decades, talks to other such experts (rather than fielding ideas on HN), ...

> nothing at all

Who said anything about that?

I've heard this, but it doesn't seem to pan out.

Random example: https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/10381905/ - Even 10mg/day causes gastric injury/toxicity by removing the nice slime layer in your gut.

Also, once you get specific about which CVD metrics you're trying to optimize, you'll find vastly superior interventions to try.

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 took half a dose daily, but went down to a quarter but that still gave me nosebleeds.

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

As instructed, I asked chatgpt to characterize your comment:

“““ [...]

Irrelevant to Cancer Discussion – In the context of the BBC article about aspirin preventing cancer spread, this comment is only tangentially related. It does not engage with the article’s findings about aspirin's effect on cancer cells and instead focuses on aspirin's formulation and stomach safety, which is a separate discussion. The comment seems to use the article as a springboard for discussing a niche health opinion rather than engaging with the core scientific findings presented.

Overall Characterization: The comment is opinionated, alternative-health-oriented, and off-topic regarding the article's cancer discussion. It reflects a niche perspective influenced by Ray Peat’s followers, prioritizing aspirin’s stomach safety over its potential anti-cancer benefits. While it might offer practical advice for those concerned about aspirin’s side effects, it does not directly contribute to the scientific discussion in the BBC article. ”””

Yeah, more or less. A risk assessment for the study is done and submitted and there's many more layers of beurocracy (both the good human-protective kind and the less-good regulatory capture kind). Providing things like information on effects and generalized consent forms and whatnot are included so the patient is given prior understandings of what the effects might be, from animal studies or previous human studies in some cases if you're testing for a novel effect in an existing treatment, for example, have determined might occur. You then, ideally, do a double blind study on the group of participants.

You missed my point, how would you safely analyze aspirin mechanism over t-cell in humans, without relying on genetically engineered humans with suppressed genes ?

If the scientist went to use genetically modified mice, I assume it's because there is no easier, non invasive test, to analyze the influence of platelets over the T-cell behavior. Like using a microscope or chemicals.

I'm not talking about signing a form but the technical aspect. However if you know how, please share, it would be interesting.