A study suggests, a daily aspirin tablet may help prevent bowel cancer. Oxford University found it cut cases by a quarter and deaths by more than a third in a study on 14,000 patients.Aspirins are already widely used to help protect people against strokes and heart problems, although many healthy middle-aged people do not take them because of the risk of side-effects. But researchers said their findings – published by the Lancet – tipped the balance in favour of taking them. They followed up four study groups over a period of 20 years to identify the impact of regular small doses of the drug. They found it reduced the risk of the incidence of bowel cancer by 24 per cent and of dying from the disease by 35 per cent.