阿司匹林让人吃惊的另一面

Science and Technology Prevention of cancer Wonder drug
科技 预防癌症 特效药

Aspirin continues to amaze
阿司匹林让人吃惊的另一面

FOR thousands of years aspirin has been humanity's wonder drug.
几千年来，阿司匹林就一直是人类的特效药。

Extracts from the willow tree have been used for pain relief in folk medicine since the time of the ancient Greeks.
从古希腊开始，在民间医药中，人们就用柳树的萃取物缓解疼痛。

By 1897 a synthetic derivative (acetyl salicylic acid) of the plant's active ingredient (salicin) was created. This allowed aspirin to become the most widely used medicine in the world.
1897年，这种植物中的有效成分的人工合成衍生物诞生了，于是阿司匹林变成了世界上应用最广泛的药品。

In recent years its benefits as a blood-thinning drug have led to it being prescribed in low doses of around 50mg to reduce deaths from stroke and heart attack.
最近几年，由于阿司匹林的防血凝功能，在用其治疗中风和心脏病的时候，剂量很小，维持在50mg的水平左右。

There were also hints that aspirin may help prevent some cancers.
也有迹象表明阿司匹林可以帮助预防一些癌症。

But these were mostly based on observational studies, which can be misleading.
不过这些结论大多都是在观察研究的基础上的，因而有可能产生误导。

The gold standard of scientific evidence is the randomised controlled trial, preferably one with a lot of people and held over a long time.
国际上科学证据的标准是由随机对照实验得出的结果，尤其是那些有很多人参与又经过很长时间的实验。

The results of just such a trial, published in the Lancet, suggest that aspirin is indeed an astonishing drug.
而就是这样一份发表在《柳叶刀》上的论文表示阿司匹林的确是一种让人吃惊的药物。

Peter Rothwell at the John Radcliffe Hospital in Oxford and his colleagues looked at deaths due to cancers during and after randomised trials of daily aspirin.
来自牛津的约翰·拉德克里夫医院的彼得·罗思韦尔（Peter Rothwell）和他的同事们研究了在每日服用阿司匹林的随机对照实验期间或者之后因癌症而死亡的病例。

The trials had actually been started to look at how useful aspirin was for preventing heart attacks and strokes. Nevertheless, the data from the 25,570 patients enrolled in eight trials was also revealing about cancer.
这一实验本是为了研究阿司匹林在防止心脏病和中风方面的疗效的，然而八项试验25570名患者的数据也揭示了阿司匹林对于癌症的疗效。

In trials lasting between four and eight years, the patients who had been given aspirin were 21% less likely to die from cancer than those who had been given a placebo.
在那些历时4到8年之间的实验中，服用阿司匹林的患者因癌症而死亡的概率比那些服用安慰剂的患者小了21%。

These results were based on 674 cancer deaths, so are unlikely to represent the kind of statistical oddity that can beset studies on cancer risks that sometimes create headlines.
这些结果是在674例癌症死亡病例的基础上得出的，所以不大可能是所谓的统计学上的例外。对癌症风险的研究会因这种例外而受挫，有时甚至会闹成大新闻。