A new study reports that taking one aspirin a day can reduce cancer mortality by 25 percent. The study of 25,570 patients, published in the British medical journal The Lancet, showed a reduction in long-term mortality among patients with all types of cancer who adhered to a small daily dose of aspirin for five years. Alastair Watson, professor of translational medicine at the University of East Anglia in the United Kingdom, said the latest study “provides further evidence that aspirin is far and away the world’s most miraculous drug. Daily aspirin use reduced mortality from colorectal cancer by 40 percent and from esophageal cancer by 60 percent. At the end of the century, the German company Bayer synthesized aspirin and brought it to market on a large scale, marking the introduction of the modern drug. Many experts believe that the pharmaceutical industry’s first drug has never been surpassed. The study, led by Oxford University’s Peter Rothwell, was based on data from eight clinical trials designed to assess the utility of aspirin in preventing cardiovascular disease, previously considered the primary utility of aspirin. Researchers considered participants’ medical records over a 20-year period, focusing on cancer. Peter Elwood of Cardiff University said the main side effect of aspirin in adults is increased gastric mucorman blinking in one in 2,000 people, and small doses are almost never fatal. Elwood has studied aspirin for nearly 40 years. Roswell, who has been taking small doses of aspirin for years, believes these results suggest that, in general, almost all middle-aged adults would benefit from taking small doses (75 milligrams per day and 300 milligrams for aspirin for pain) of aspirin daily. Elwood said aspirin may enhance the ability of cells to repair DNA damage and thus help prevent cancer.