I find the advice given by Cancer Research UK in your first link quite strange.
They seem to accept that if 1000 people aged 60 took aspirin for 20 years there would be:
17.4 fewer deaths from cancer and heart attacks
2.4 more deaths from strokes, ulcers and gastric bleeds
That's a net reduction of 15 deaths per 1000 people. Yet before they recommend that everyone aged 60 take aspirin, they want to know:
a) What age should people start, and stop, taking aspirin?
b) What dose should they take?
c) What are the factors that should rule someone out from taking aspirin, and how should we test for them?
Here are my answers to Cancer Research UK:
a) People whose age would put them within the study cohort. From my reading this is at least people aged 60 for 20 years
b) They should take the dose that was looked at in the study
c) We don't know what factors should rule someone out, but until we do know we should recommend aspirin to everyone who would have been within the cohort study.
There are probably around 10 million people aged 55-65 in the UK. 15 extra deaths per 1000 people means an extra 150,000 deaths over 20 years.
So the cost of waiting for more studies is about 7 extra deaths per day in the UK alone. Cancer Research UK is being too hesitant in its recommendations.
They seem to accept that if 1000 people aged 60 took aspirin for 20 years there would be:
17.4 fewer deaths from cancer and heart attacks
2.4 more deaths from strokes, ulcers and gastric bleeds
That's a net reduction of 15 deaths per 1000 people. Yet before they recommend that everyone aged 60 take aspirin, they want to know:
a) What age should people start, and stop, taking aspirin?
b) What dose should they take?
c) What are the factors that should rule someone out from taking aspirin, and how should we test for them?
Here are my answers to Cancer Research UK:
a) People whose age would put them within the study cohort. From my reading this is at least people aged 60 for 20 years
b) They should take the dose that was looked at in the study
c) We don't know what factors should rule someone out, but until we do know we should recommend aspirin to everyone who would have been within the cohort study.
There are probably around 10 million people aged 55-65 in the UK. 15 extra deaths per 1000 people means an extra 150,000 deaths over 20 years.
So the cost of waiting for more studies is about 7 extra deaths per day in the UK alone. Cancer Research UK is being too hesitant in its recommendations.