An aspirin a day could keep skin cancer away, according to a new
report in the journal Cancer. Researchers in Denmark and the
U.S. found that people taking common painkillers like aspirin
and ibuprofen were less likely to develop skin cancer —
including squamous cell carcinoma and malignant melanoma —
especially when they took the drugs for at least seven years or
used them at least twice a week. It’s not the first study to
show a potential anticancer effect of aspirin and other similar
painkillers — a class of medications known and nonsteroidal
anti-inflammatory drugs, or NSAIDs. Previous studies have found
that aspirin users enjoyed a lower risk of colon cancer; a trial
published earlier this year concluded that people who take a
daily aspirin have as much as a 46% lower risk of colon, lung
and prostate cancers, compared with non-users. In the current
trial, researchers looked at all cancer cases in the Danish
Cancer Registry from 1991 to 2009 and compared this data against
that of a prescription-drug datab