The combined use of aspirin, statins and metformin is associated with reduced risk of lung cancer, according to a study published in the Journal of Thoracic Oncology. The purpose behind the study was to investigate the associations of aspirin, statins and metformin with lung cancer risk and mortality using population-based nationwide data. The drugs, taken in combination, lower the risk of lung cancer by 17%. The data also showed that they reduce the risk of dying from the disease by 17%.
These three medicines are common and are taken by large number of people. Statin is taken to control cholesterol by approximately 35 million people; more than 120 million take metformin to control diabetes and aspirin is taken by 6 to 10 million people daily. The research indicates that aspirin and metformin both work to slow down the growth of lung cancer cells. For this study, 676,520 Koreans from the Korean National Health Insurance Services database were examined following patients for 10 years, between January 2004 and December 2013. To address the combined associations of these drugs with lung cancer risk and mortality, they categorized the cohort into eight groups, according to their exposure to aspirin, statins and metformin.
Dr. Dong Wook Shin, of the Sungkyunkwan University School of Medicine in Seoul, said in a statement, “When these cardiovascular drugs were used in combination, their protective associations with lung cancer risk and related mortality were augmented and the magnitude of effect increased with increasing duration of medication use.” These findings are based on the analysis of the data collected from Korean National Health Insurance Services, a universal healthcare system covering the entire population of country i.e. 52 million.
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