| Chemoprevention and Neuroproyection. |  |
In the last few years more than 30 epidemiological studies have concluded that regular use of aspirin and other NSAIDs protect against colon and other cancers including lung, pancreas and prostate cancers. Evidence is mounting that regular aspirin usage may reduce the risk of many of today´s commonest cancers. First indications of this were in colon cancer. In a long-term study of 90.000 US nurses between 1976 and 1995 those who took 4-6 tablets of aspirin per week had a greatly reduced incidence of colorectal cancer compared with nurses who did not take aspirin. More recently, a study involving 14,000 women has shown that those who had reported using aspirin 3 o more times per week for at least 6 months were one third less likely to develop lung cancer compared with women who had taken no aspirin. Also recently published is a study of the effect of aspirin usage in pancreatic cancer incidence in 28.000 post-menopausal women. In those individuals who took aspirin 2-5 times per week, the risk of developing pancreatic cancer was 53% lower than in those women who had never taken aspirin. The more often the women took aspirin, the lower their rsik of cancer. In addition, aspirin and other NSAIDs protect against cancer in animal cancer models. Finally, a large number of in vitro studies have shown that aspirin and other NSAIDs prevent tumor cell proliferation. The list of chemopreventive agents tested includes not only NSAIDs but many other compounds (Chemoprevention of Colorectal Cancer). What dose of aspirin to use, how frequently to use it even exactly how it works are still unknown but more work is being done to clarify these issues. What is clear from the accumulating experience is that regular use of aspirin really does seem to reduce the risk of a growing range of the commonest and most serious cancers. The efficiency of aspirin and some other compounds has promoted a great interest in the field of CHEMOPREVENTION RESEARCH. However, the action mechanism remains elusive. It is well established that aspirin and other NSAIDs inhibit COX-1 and COX-2 activity. COX-2 is induced very often in tumors and it has been proposed as the major target for NSAIDs in cancer prevention. However, recent data are against this view. For example, many NSAIDs including some COXIBs that fail to inhibit COX-2 have antiproliferative effects. Moreover, NSAIDs and COXIBs prevent tumor cell growth in tumor cells lacking COX-2 gene expression suggesting that there are important COX-2 independent targets for aspirin and other NSAIDs that are relevant for their antitumoral action. The use of aspirin for cancer chemoprention has not yet recommended. This is probably due to the not negligible secondary effects of aspirin. Research is also addressing the development of new aspirins with chemopreventive effects but devoid of the secondary damaging action of aspirin. It is very surprising that aspirin and other NSAIDs not only seem to prevent cancer but also to protect agains Neurodegenerative Diseases like Alzheimer disease. Again, the neuroprotectiva action mechanism of aspirin is unknown but research is ongoing in many labs around the world in search of this action mechanism. Like in Chemoprevention, the area of NEUROPROTECTION RESEARCH is growing more and more due to the difficulty of getting a cure for devastating diseases as Alzheimer disease. It is thought that mitochondria is involved in neuronal cell damage. We are investigating whether the target of neuroprotection afforded by aspirin and other NSAIDs is mitochondria.