Press Release - Apr 27, 2007
Low-Dose Aspirin Does Not Protect Women Against Cognitive Decline, BWH Study Finds
Boston, MA - Jae Hee Kang, ScD, from the Channing Laboratory at Brigham and Women's Hospital and colleagues from the Department of Preventative Medicine observed no benefit of low-dose aspirin in slowing cognitive decline in generally healthy women aged 65 years or more who are enrolled in the Women's Health Study. This study appears on the British Medical Journal's website today.  Identifying ways to prevent dementia is a public health priority. "Recent studies have supported the notion that what's good for the heart may also be good for the brain," said Kang. "Because aspirin reduces the risk of cardiovascular disease, the drug seemed promising as an intervention for maintaining cognitive health."
In this study, over 6,000 women were randomly divided into two groups. Over a period of nearly 10 years, the first group took low-dose aspirin (100mg on alternate days) and the second group took a placebo. Each woman had three cognitive assessments at two year intervals to measure general cognition, verbal memory and category fluency. The researchers found that overall performance across all tests from the first to the final assessment was similar in both groups as was the risk of substantial cognitive decline.
Based on their research, Kang and colleagues recommend investigating other methods of preserving cognitive function in older adults.
Brigham and Women's Hospital (BWH) is a 747-bed nonprofit teaching affiliate of Harvard Medical School and a founding member of Partners HealthCare System, an integrated health care delivery network. BWH is committed to excellence in patient care with expertise in virtually every specialty of medicine and surgery. The BWH medical preeminence dates back to 1832, and today that rich history in clinical care is coupled with its national leadership in quality improvement and patient safety initiatives and its dedication to educating and training the next generation of health care professionals. Through investigation and discovery conducted at its Biomedical Research Institute (BRI), BWH is an international leader in basic, clinical and translational research on human diseases, involving more than 800 physician-investigators and renowned biomedical scientists and faculty supported by more than $400M in funding. BWH is also home to major landmark epidemiologic population studies, including the Nurses' and Physicians' Health Studies and the Women's Health Initiative. For more information about BWH, please visit www.brighamandwomens.org.
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