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Inflammation, Frailty, and Aspirin Use in the Physicians’ Health Study: A Pilot Study

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Abstract

Whether anti-inflammatory medications such as aspirin can lower the risk of frailty is an active area of investigation. In previous studies, we reported that regular aspirin use started in midlife was associated with a lower risk of frailty at older age. We therefore sought to further examine the relationship between inflammatory biomarkers, frailty and aspirin use in a pilot nested case-control study of 300 participants aged ≥60 years with available data to calculate a frailty index from the Physicians’ Health Study, a completed randomized trial of aspirin that began in 1982. We selected 150 individuals who were frail (frailty index >0.2) and 150 who were not frail (frailty index <0.1). We then matched 29 low users of aspirin (≤60 days/year) 3:1 to 87 regular users of aspirin (>60 days/year). After matching on age, smoking status, history of diabetes and CVD, there was no significant association between aspirin use and level of frailty among those with elevated inflammatory biomarkers (all p>0.05). In this pilot study we did not find evidence of a mediation effect of CRP, TNFR-2 or IL-6 on the association between aspirin and frailty. Additional work is needed to elucidate the potential mechanistic pathways through which medications such as aspirin may be linked with frailty.

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Figure 1 a–c

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Acknowledgements

We are grateful to the volunteers who participated in the Physicians’ Health Study.

Author information

Authors and Affiliations

  1. Barnard College, New York, NY, USA

    D. Gewurz

  2. Brigham & Women’s Hospital, Boston, MA, USA

    G. Zhou, Y. Endo & I. Sinha

  3. Division of Aging, Brigham & Women’s Hospital, Harvard Medical School, Boston, MA, USA

    J. M. Gaziano & Ariela R. Orkaby

  4. Massachusetts Veterans Epidemiology Research and Information Center (MAVERIC), VA Boston Healthcare System, Boston, MA, USA

    J. M. Gaziano

  5. Division of Preventive Medicine, Brigham & Women’s Hospital, Harvard Medical School, Boston, MA, USA

    H. D. Sesso

  6. Department of Epidemiology, Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health, Boston, MA, USA

    H. D. Sesso

  7. Geriatric Research, Education, and Clinical Center, VA Boston Healthcare System, Boston, MA, USA

    Ariela R. Orkaby

  8. New England GRECC, 150 South Huntington, Boston, MA, 02130, USA

    Ariela R. Orkaby

Authors
  1. D. Gewurz
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  2. G. Zhou
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  3. Y. Endo
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  4. I. Sinha
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  5. J. M. Gaziano
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  6. H. D. Sesso
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  7. Ariela R. Orkaby
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Corresponding author

Correspondence to Ariela R. Orkaby.

Ethics declarations

Disclosures: Dr. Orkaby reports consulting fees from Anthos therapeutics, unrelated to this work. This work was supported by a career development award to Dr. Orkaby from the NIA Boston Pepper Center Older Americans Independence Center (OAIC) NIA P30AG031679-1, and a pilot freezer award from the Pepper Center Older Americans Independence Center (OAIC) National Coordinating Center. The PHS was supported by grants CA-34944, CA-40360 and CA-097193 from the National Cancer Institute and grants HL-26490 and HL-34595 from the NHLBI.

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Role of the Funders/Sponsors: The funders/sponsors had no role in the design and conduct of the study; collection, management, analysis, and interpretation of the data; preparation, review, or approval of the manuscript; and decision to submit the manuscript for publication. This work was conducted with support from Harvard Catalyst I The Harvard Clinical and Translational Science Center (National Center for Advancing Translational Sciences, National Institutes of Health Award UL1 TR002541) and financial contributions from Harvard University and its affiliated academic healthcare centers. The content is solely the responsibility of the authors and does not necessarily represent the official views of Harvard Catalyst, Harvard University and its affiliated academic healthcare centers, or the National Institutes of Health.

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Gewurz, D., Zhou, G., Endo, Y. et al. Inflammation, Frailty, and Aspirin Use in the Physicians’ Health Study: A Pilot Study. J Frailty Aging (2024). https://doi.org/10.14283/jfa.2024.37

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