Reuters Health

Long-term ibuprofen use cut Alzheimer's risk

May 05, 2008
By Julie Steenhuysen

CHICAGO (Reuters) - People who took the painkiller ibuprofen for more than five years had a 40 percent lower risk of developing Alzheimer's disease, U.S. researchers said on Monday.

They also found that certain other medicines in the same class, known as non-steroidal anti-inflammatory drugs, or NSAIDs, reduced the risk of developing the illness by 25 percent.

"Some of these medications taken long-term decrease the risk of Alzheimer's disease, but it's very dependent on the exact drugs used. It doesn't appear that all NSAIDs decrease the risk at the same rate," Dr. Steven Vlad of Boston University School of Medicine, whose study appears in the journal Neurology, said in a statement.

The study involved more than 49,000 U.S. veterans aged 55 and older who developed Alzheimer's and nearly 200,000 who had no form of dementia. The researchers looked at more than five years of prescription data from the U.S. Veterans Affairs health care system, and at several different NSAIDs.

They found those who were prescribed ibuprofen for more than five years were 40 percent less likely to develop Alzheimer's disease than those who did not. The longer they used ibuprofen -- sold under many brand names, including Motrin and Advil -- the lower their risk.

The study also found that while some NSAIDs, such as indomethacin, were associated with lower risks of Alzheimer's, other drugs in the class, such as Pfizer Inc's celecoxib, or Celebrex, were not.

DOCTOR: DON'T START TAKING IBUPROFEN

Alzheimer's disease has been linked with inflammation, and researchers believe that anti-inflammatory drugs might help delay onset of the disease.

"What's new here is that where other studies have shown that NSAIDs as a class are associated with a lower risk of Alzheimer's disease, we have shown that the risk varies by the individual drug," Vlad said by e-mail.

"This kind of individual drug effect has been suggested before only in animal and other lab studies to date. Because our numbers were so big, we were actually able to find differences between individual drugs in humans," he said.

Despite the benefits, Vlad does not recommend that people start taking ibuprofen in the hopes of staving off Alzheimer's disease.

"All NSAIDs have significant risks including ulcers, gastrointestinal bleeding, kidney dysfunction, elevated blood pressure and, certainly in the case of COX-II inhibitors like (Merck Inc's withdrawn drug) Vioxx, a cardiovascular risk," he said.

"I think the major implications of this study are more in the direction of prompting further research: a trial of ibuprofen to prevent Alzheimer's disease might be reasonable," he said.

An estimated 5.2 million Americans have Alzheimer's disease, which is the most common form of dementia. The disease starts out with mild memory loss and confusion, but escalates into complete memory loss and an inability to care for oneself.

Alzheimer's disease has no cure and few effective treatments.

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