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Bowel cancer patients who take daily aspirin could cut their chance of dying from the disease by about a third, experts believe. A study in the British Journal of Cancer looked at 4,500 bowel cancer patients living in The Netherlands. All of the patients on aspirin were taking a low dose - 80mg or less a day - something already recommended for people with heart disease. But experts say it is too soon to start routinely offering it for bowel cancer. A wealth of evidence already suggests aspirin might prevent certain cancers from developing in the first place. And more recent work suggests it might also work as a cancer therapy - slowing down or preventing a cancer's spread. But the drug can also have unpleasant and dangerous side effects, causing irritation of the stomach lining and internal bleeds in a very small minority of patients.