A daily dose of aspirin could significantly cut the risk of breast cancer, research shows.Women who take the popular painkiller every day are 16 per cent less likely to develop the most common form of the disease than those who never take the drug.
The study adds to growing evidence that aspirin, which costs just pennies per pill, prevents the development of the cancer which claims the lives of more than 1,000 British women a month.
The women, who were all aged 50 or above, were cancer-free at the start of the study.
The US researchers evaluated the drug's cancer-fighting abilities by tracking the health of almost 130,000 women for six years.
By the end, more than 4,500 had been diagnosed with breast cancer, the journal Breast Cancer Research reports.
Analysis showed there was a clear link between aspirin use and the chances of the most common form of breast cancer, a type fuelled by the sex hormone oestrogen.
Women who took aspirin each day were 16 per cent less likely to develop this form of the cancer.
Although the drug didn't seem to ward off other types of breast cancer, the finding is important as around three-quarters of breast tumours feed on oestrogen.
It is thought the drug stops the disease by cutting the production of the hormone by the body.
It is thought the drug stops the disease by cutting the production of the hormone by the body.
The study, unlike some other pieces of research, did not find that other similar painkillers, such as ibuprofen, prevented the cancer. It also did not look at the dose needed to stave off the cancer.
Previous studies have shown that regularly taking aspirin can also cut the risk of skin, ovarian and prostate cancers.
The drug may also cut a person's risk of dying from any form of the disease by 13 per cent.
However, experts caution that the side-effects of regular aspirin use mean that much more research needs to be done before it is used to ward off cancer.
Dr Sarah Cant, of charity Breakthrough Breast Cancer, said: "Until the long-term effects of taking these drugs for breast cancer prevention are known, we would urge women worried about their risk of breast cancer to talk to their GP."
Aspirin can irritate the stomach and cause internal bleeding and haemorrhagic strokes, where blood vessels in the brain burst.
The drug may also raise the risk of pancreatic cancer, one of the most deadly of all cancers.
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