"Taking low doses of aspirin can reduce the risk of many kinds of cancer scientists said on Tuesday and the evidence is strong enough to suggest people over  should take it daily as protection.  Bayer workers are seen taking samples for the inprocess control at the Aspirin protect tablet press in a handout photo. REUTERSBayerHandout The findings will fuel an already intense debate about the merits of taking aspirin which increases the risk of bleeding in the stomach to around one patient in every thousand per year.  In a study of eight trials involving  patients researchers found that cancer deaths among those who took aspirin in doses as low as  milligrams a day were  percent lower during the studies and  percent lower after five years.  Aspirin protected people against gastrointestinal cancers the most the study found with rates of death from these cancers around  percent lower after five years among those who took aspirin compared to those who did not.  Peter Rothwell of Britains Oxford University said that while taking aspirin carries a small risk of stomach bleeding that risk was beginning to be drowned out by its benefits in reducing the risk of cancer and the risk of heart attacks.  Previous guidelines have rightly cautioned that in healthy middleaged people the small risk of bleeding on aspirin partly offsets the benefit from prevention of strokes and heart attacks but the reductions in deaths due to several common cancers will now alter this balance for many people he said.  His suggestion was that healthy people could start taking a small  mg dose of aspirin every day from the age of about  or  and continue doing so until they reached around  to  when the risk of the aspirin causing stomach bleeding rises.  REMARKABLE DRUG  Aspirin originally developed by Bayer is a cheap overthecounter drug used for pain and to reduce fever.  Previous studies have found taking aspirin can cut the risk of developing colon or bowel cancer and suggested it does so by blocking the enzyme cyclooxygenase which promotes inflammation and cell division and is found in high levels in tumors.  Alastair Watson professor of translational medicine at the University of East Anglia said the study was an important step in scientists understanding of how to prevent cancer.  It is further proof that aspirin is by a long way the most amazing drug in the world he said.  In Rothwells study published in The Lancet researchers found the year risk of death was reduced by about  percent for prostate cancer  percent for lung cancer  percent for colorectal or bowel cancer and  percent for oesophageal cancer in those taking aspirin.  Generic Aspirin pain medication pills are shown in the pharmacy of the J.W.C.H. safetynet clinic in the center of skid row in downtown Los Angeles July  . REUTERSLucy Nicholson Reductions in pancreas stomach and brain cancers were difficult to quantify because of smaller numbers of deaths.  The researchers added however that treatment with aspirin during the trials lasted for only for between four and eight years on average so the effects on risk of deaths due to cancer may underestimate possible results of longerterm treatment.  Peter Elwood an expert on aspirin from Cardiff Universitys medical school who was not involved in this study described aspirin as a remarkable drug.  This risk of a bleed is so small compared to the benefits he told reporters. Yes okay its a tragedy if a person is rushed into hospital and given a transfusion because of a stomach bleed but in relation to the things we are preventing that is trivial.  Editing by Matthew Jones Our StandardsThe Thomson Reuters Trust Principles httpthomsonreuters.comenaboutustrustprinciples.html"