Low-Dose Aspirin Won't Help Aging Brain

Major 10-year study of older women shows no differences

By Amanda Gardner
HealthDay Reporter

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THURSDAY, April 26 (HealthDay News) -- Despite earlier hopes, regular use of low-dose aspirin does not protect older, healthy women against cognitive decline, a major new study concludes.

The findings may lay to rest the notion that aspirin can prevent age-related shortfalls in memory and thinking.

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"I certainly don't think that people should look at taking low-dose aspirin as a preventive measure for cognitive decline," said study author Jae Hee Kang, an instructor of medicine at Brigham and Women's Hospital in Boston. "I think that's pretty clear, especially among those women who are healthy."

Another expert agreed.

"It doesn't slam [the door] shut, but it does kind of close it out," said Dr. Gary Kennedy, director of geriatric psychiatry at Montefiore Medical Center in New York City. "They had a large enough sample that, even for a short period of observation, they should have seen the effect." He was not involved in the study, which was published online Thursday in the British Medical Journal.

Previous evidence had suggested that aspirin and other anti-inflammatory drugs might help protect aging brains from dementia. Larger randomized trials, such as this one, however, had been inconclusive.

Low-dose aspirin does have significant cardiovascular benefits. New expert guidelines recommend that women aged 65 and over consider taking low-dose aspirin on a routine basis, regardless of their cardiovascular risk, to help prevent both heart attacks and stroke. Women under 65 should not be taking aspirin routinely.

But this study focused on brain health. Kang and her colleagues looked at almost 6,400 women, aged 65 or over, who were all participating in the Women's Health Study between 1998 and 2004.

Participants were assessed cognitively every two years by phone. These tests tracked general cognition, verbal memory and category fluency (arranging things quickly by kind).

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