UNIVERSITY NEWS - JULY 2005
MEDIA CONTACT: Kristine McGrath 561-297-1168, kmcgrath@fau.edu
Women's Health Study Reveals Lack of Benefit of Very Low Dose Aspirin on Cancer or of Vitamin E on Cancer or Cardiovascular Disease
FAU Professor was founding Principal Investigator of landmark study
BOCA RATON, FL (July 5, 2005) - Researchers reported the results of a decade-long study in which both a very low dose aspirin was evaluated in the primary prevention of cancer and vitamin E was studied in the primary prevention of cancer and cardiovascular disease. These results from the Women's Health Study (WHS) of approximately 40,000 apparently healthy female health professionals are being published in two manuscripts in the Journal of the American Medical Association (JAMA).
Florida Atlantic University's Charles E. Schmidt College of Science Professor Charles H. Hennekens, coauthor of the two JAMA papers, was the founding Principal Investigator of this landmark randomized trial which was funded by the National Institutes of Health. Hennekens, who is also a professor at the University of Miami School of Medicine, noted that any lack of benefit of aspirin on cancer must be viewed in the context of the very low dose which had been chosen based on the potential to reduce cardiovascular disease. In previous trials, higher doses of aspirin reduced the risk of colon polyps and cancer. Regarding vitamin E, moderate-to-high doses of 600 mg daily were tested and showed no effects on cancer, heart attack or stroke but a significant reduction in cardiovascular death.
Hennekens also noted that, unfortunately, most Americans prefer a prescription of pills to a proscription of harmful lifestyles. Hennekens and his coauthors concluded that, at present, in the primary prevention of cardiovascular disease and cancer, therapeutic lifestyle changes including a healthy diet, increased levels of physical activity and control of major risk factors remain important clinical and public health strategies. For example, aspirin was associated with a possible reduction in lung cancer which, even if confirmed, is very small compared with the benefits of avoidance or cessation of cigarettes.
"It is important to note that the dose used in the WHS of 100 mg of aspirin every other day is the lowest ever tested in primary prevention of cardiovascular disease and far lower than any tested in prevention of cancer," said Hennekens, adding that he and his colleagues have raised the important and timely question that higher doses might provide additional cardiovascular benefits besides the antiplatelet effects. "These include improvements in combating inflammation, enhanced functioning of the vessel wall and possibly even production of substances that slow progression of arterial narrowing," he said.
FAU has received two investigator-initiated research grants from Bayer to test these questions - one grant to study patients with heart disease and the other for individuals without heart disease but who are at high risk due to metabolic syndrome, a constellation of obesity, hypertension, abnormal lipids and elevated blood sugars. The doses of aspirin being tested range from 81 mg to 1300 mg daily. The results of these investigations, directed by Hennekens and FAU Assistant Professor Dr. Danielle Hollar, should be available within the next couple of years.
Hennekens also was the founding Principal Investigator for the landmark Physician's Health Study which was the first to demonstrate that aspirin reduces the risk of a first heart attack. He is a research professor in FAU's Biomedical program as well as in FAU's Center of Excellence in Biomedical and Marine Biotechnology.
"We are extremely pleased to have a researcher with the stature and expertise of Charles Hennekens on our faculty," said Dr. Larry F. Lemanski, vice president for Research and Graduate Studies at FAU. "The research he is doing in this and other areas will continue to have a major impact on the health of people around the world."
-FAU-
