Aspirin and nonfebrile waking oral temperature in healthy men and women: links with SWS changes?

Previous work from our laboratory has shown that aspirin leads to a significant reduction in slow wave sleep (SWS). Recently, it has been hypothesized that this might be linked to alterations in body temperature around sleep onset, and during the preceding wakefulness. We report unpublished findings from an earlier aspirin and sleep study that help to address this issue. Seventeen healthy subjects took their oral temperature on an hourly basis throughout wakefulness, during 5 baseline days, 4 days on drug or placebo, and 3 recovery days. A dose of 600 mg of aspirin three times a day led to a small but significant fall in oral temperature in both men and women. The circadian temperature trends over the waking day remained unaltered. The relevance of these findings to SWS changes was discussed.