ASCEND Study
Welcome to the ASCEND study website. ASCEND is a clinical trial which aimed to find out whether aspirin and/or omega-3 fatty acids (fish oils) reduced the risk of heart attacks and strokes in people with diabetes who did not already have any existing problems with their heart or blood circulation, when they started the study.
We would like to say a big "Thank you!" to all our ASCEND participants for your ongoing support for the study.
The main trial has now ended. Participants stopped taking study treatment in 2017, and results were reported in 2018. ASCEND will continue to collect information on health outcomes by obtaining routinely collected data via central data registries and NHS sources. See the long-term study section for more information about this long-term follow-up, and our Privacy Notice for information on how we use participant data.
Trial began 2005
15480 participants
Long-term follow-up until 2037
Study results: fish oils
ISRCTN registry no: ISRCTN60635500
ClinicalTrials.gov Identifier: NCT00135226
ascend eye assessment
- ASCEND-Eye Questionnaire (link to PDF)
- ASCEND-Eye Participant Information Leaflet (link to PDF)
- ASCEND-Eye Data Analysis Plan (link to PDF)
Requests can be made for sharing ASCEND data, with procedures for accessing the data available at: https://www.ndph.ox.ac.uk/data-access.
Selected Publications
04/2022: Effects of aspirin on dementia and cognitive function in diabetic patients: the ASCEND trial
01/2020: Effects of Omega-3 Fatty Acid Supplements on Arrhythmias.
11/2019: Streamlined mail-based methods for large randomised trials: lessons learnt from the ASCEND study.
10/2018: Effects of Aspirin for Primary Prevention in Persons with Diabetes Mellitus.
10/2018: Effects of n-3 Fatty Acid Supplements in Diabetes Mellitus.
ASCEND was funded by the British Heart Foundation with additional support from Bayer Healthcare and AG Mylan (previously Abbott Laboratories) who provided the study treatments and some funding to cover the drug packaging. Alzheimer’s Research UK have provided a grant to allow the measurement of cognitive function in ASCEND.
The ASCEND-Eye work has been supported by a grant from the Macular Society.
Ongoing long-term follow-up work is being supported by grants from the BHF, HDRUK, and MRC.