Regular use of aspirin increases risk of Crohn’s disease by five times

COMMENT: Granted, the name of East Anglia University has been dragged through the mud due to the deceptive and potentially criminal behavior of certain climate researchers there, this study may still have merit. As with any scientific study, it is posted here to be considered but obviously not endorsed. The irony, however, is not overlooked.

University of East Anglia
School of Medicine
May 4, 2010

Led by Dr Andrew Hart of UEA’s School of Medicine, the research will be presented for the first time at the Digestive Disease Week conference in New Orleans today.

Crohn’s disease is a serious condition affecting 60,000 people in the UK and 500,000 people in the US. It is characterized by inflammation and swelling of any part of the digestive system. This can lead to debilitating symptoms and requires patients to take life-long medication. Some patients need surgery and some sufferers have an increased risk of bowel cancer.

• A d v e r t i s e m e n t

Though there are likely to be many causes of the disease, previous work on tissue samples has shown that aspirin can have a harmful effect on the bowel. To investigate this potential link further, the UEA team followed 200,000 volunteers aged 30-74 in the UK, Sweden, Denmark, Germany and Italy. The volunteers had been recruited for the EPIC study (European Prospective Investigation into Cancer and Nutrition) between 1993 and 1997.

The volunteers were all initially well, but by 2004 a small number had developed Crohn’s disease. When looking for differences in aspirin use between those who did and did not develop the disease, the researchers discovered that those taking aspirin regularly for a year or more were around five times more likely to develop Crohn’s disease.

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This article was posted: Tuesday, May 4, 2010 at 5:32 pm

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