Aspirin Helps Many Medical Problems

June 18, 2013

Aspirin helps many medical conditions, but may also cause problems for some people.

From VOA Learning English, this is Science in the News. I'm Mario Ritter.

And I'm Avi Arditti. Today, we tell the story of aspirin.

People have known since ancient times that aspirin helps to reduce pain and high body temperature. But that is not all aspirin can do. It has gained important new uses in recent years. Small amounts of the drug may help prevent a heart attack or stroke.

One study showed that some people who took two aspirin pills a day had lower rates of colorectal cancer. And researchers say aspirin may help patients with colon cancer live longer. But others say the acid in aspirin can cause bleeding in the stomach and intestines. And studies showed that aspirin or other pain medicines may lead to loss of eyesight and hearing.

So, how did aspirin become so important? The story begins with a willow tree. Two thousand years ago, the Greek doctor Hippocrates advised his patients to chew on the bark and leaves of the willow. The tree contains the chemical salicin. In the 1800s, researchers discovered how to make salicylic acid from salicin. In 1897, a chemist named Felix Hoffmann at Friedrich Bayer and Company in Germany created acetyl salicylic acid. Later, it became the active substance in a medicine that Bayer called aspirin.