You probably know someone who swallows a baby aspirin with breakfast. For many older adults it is a quiet habit, taken for the heart or just out of long routine.
Researchers now say a slim slice of them may be getting an unexpected bonus.
A new Monash University analysis found that older adults with a particular genetic profile had a 70 percent lower rate of dementia if they took low-dose aspirin daily.
The paper appeared in september 2026 in Alzheimer's & Dementia, the journal of the Alzheimer's Association.
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The signal is specific. It shows up only in people whose genes point to a naturally higher platelet count, the tiny cells that help blood clot.
Among that subgroup, 1 percent of those on aspirin developed dementia over the course of the trial. Among those on placebo, 3.3 percent did.
Why the overall trial missed this
The data comes from more than 13,500 participants in the ASPREE trial (Aspirin in Reducing Events in the Elderly), a large study of healthy older adults. ASPREE itself did not find an overall dementia benefit from daily aspirin when everyone was lumped together.
What changed this time is that the Monash team layered genetic scores on top of the trial data. They sorted participants by many different inherited traits and asked who, if anyone, responded to aspirin differently.
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The strongest hit was a score tied to platelet counts.
"In people with this particular genetic profile, we saw substantially fewer cases of dementia among those taking aspirin," said Dr. Peter Fransquet in the university statement.
He is a research fellow at Monash's School of Public Health and Preventive Medicine.
The bleeding tradeoff is real
The same genetic subgroup saw more serious bleeding. In the aspirin arm, major bleeds happened in 4.4 percent of people. On placebo, the rate was 2.1 percent.
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That is roughly double the risk, and it echoes what earlier aspirin research in older adults has shown.
That is why the researchers are not telling anyone to start taking aspirin. Fransquet urged people not to begin daily aspirin for dementia prevention without talking to a doctor, pointing to the bleeding risk.
What this means for you right now
For now, standard advice does not change. Current guidelines do not recommend starting low-dose aspirin for dementia prevention.
A one-off genetic analysis of a trial subgroup is not the same as a clinical trial designed to test the question.
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The authors call their work hypothesis-generating and say it needs to be confirmed in other populations.
If you already take daily aspirin on a doctor's advice, keep that conversation going with your doctor. If you don't, this study is not a reason to start.
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This article is made and published by Ida-Marie Palm Varbæk, who may have used AI in the preparation.