Written by Andrew Masterton, the\u00a0article, \u2018Could an aspirin a day keep depression away,<\/a>\u2019 refers to one of the 15 sub-studies\u00a0incorporated into\u00a0the large ASPREE (ASPirin in Reducing Events in the Elderly) clinical trial.<\/p>\r\n\r\n\r\n\r\n ASPREE-D is studying whether aspirin can prevent depression in older adults,\u00a0and is a collaboration between Monash University and\u00a0Professor Michael Berk, Alfred Deakin Professor of Psychiatry at Deakin University\u2019s School of Medicine.\u00a0With a combined 19,114 participants in Australia and the USA, ASPREE-D forms\u00a0one of the largest\u00a0randomised controlled trials ever undertaken in psychiatry to\u00a0provide definitive evidence of aspirin\u2019s effect on\u00a0depression.<\/p>\r\n\r\n\r\n\r\n Prof Berk said evidence suggests inflammation may play a role in older people developing depression. However, it is not known if this inflammation contributes to the onset or the severity of depression, or if it is a by-product. Aspirin has a well-known anti-inflammatory action.<\/p>\r\n\r\n\r\n\r\n The principal\u00a0ASPREE trial aims to determine whether daily low-dose aspirin improves quality of life for older people around the world by preventing or delaying the onset\u00a0of cardiovascular disease, dementia, depression and some cancers.<\/p>\r\n\r\n\r\n\r\n The double-blind randomised, placebo controlled trial is being undertaken in 16,703 older people in Australia and 2,411 in the USA, making it one of the largest clinical trials in the world.<\/p>\r\n\r\n\r\n\r\n In Australia, several\u00a0ancillary studies<\/a>\u00a0are investigating the effect of aspirin on a range of\u00a0health issues including age-related macular degeneration, cancer, osteoarthritis, bone fragility, severe infection, sleep apnoea, age-related hearing loss and microvascular changes in the brain.<\/p>\r\n\r\n\r\n\r\n Professor John McNeil, Principal Investigator to the ASPREE trial in Australia explained to Fairfax Media, \u201cWhen you get to prevention in people over the age of 70 there are so many other medications that they have to be on \u2013 and there\u2019s so much of an issue with side-effects and so on \u2013 that if you\u2019re going to be giving them a drug for the rest of their lives, you really want to be aware of what it\u2019s achieving, and that it\u2019s doing more good than harm.<\/p>\r\n\r\n\r\n\r\n \u201cIt became quite evident that we just didn\u2019t have that information \u2013 and for the most widely used drug in the world that\u2019s a pretty big gap.\u201d<\/p>\r\n\r\n\r\n\r\n![\"Man](\"https:\/\/aspree.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/2\/2021\/03\/web-profile-imagemichaelberk.jpg\")
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