Aspirin doesn’t preserve older women’s memory
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Among healthy older women, low-dose aspirin does little to prevent or delay mental decline over the following decade, according to analysis of data from the Women’s Health Study.
“Because aspirin protects cardiovascular health, we thought it would also protect against cognitive decline,” Dr. Jae Hee Kang from Boston’s Brigham and Women’s Hospital told Reuters Health. But trials to establish this association have yielded inconsistent results.
To clarify the effect of aspirin and aging on memory, Kang’s group evaluated 6,377 participants in the Women’s Health Study. Their average age was 72 and they were free of heart disease, cancer, or other major co-illnesses at the outset.
The women were randomly allocated to aspirin or placebo, and cognitive status was assessed by telephone approximately 5.6 years later. Assessments were repeated after another 2 and 4 years, for a total average follow-up of 9.6 years.
Based on 5,073 women who completed all three evaluations, there was very little difference between the aspirin and the placebo groups in terms of immediate or delayed verbal memory and cognitive status. Women who took aspirin, however, seemed to be at lower risk of decline in overall reasoning and functioning.
While low-dose aspirin improves cardiovascular health, Kang encouraged doctors to “weigh the risks and benefits of the drug when treating elderly patients.”
“For women in their 70s, low-dose aspirin will have no effect on their cognitive function,” Kang said.
SOURCE: BMJ Online First, 2007.
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