LONDON

By Health Newswire reporters

Non-steroidal, anti-inflammatory drugs (NSAIDS) cut the risk of developing Alzheimer’s disease, according to research from Canada.

The study’s authors reached their conclusions after looking at 15 studies published between 1996 and 2000, which examined the role of NSAIDS in preventing Alzheimer’s disease.

The researchers point out that pharmacological treatments of Alzheimer’s disease are limited, but that recent studies have suggested that NSAIDs may protect against it.

Three separate analyses were used to assess the risk of the condition in NSAID users to determine the influence of duration of use.

According to their results, NSAIDs offer protection against the development of Alzheimer’s disease and the benefits may be greater the longer the medication is used.

The researchers say that one of the reasons for the lack of benefit of using NSAIDs that appeared in two of the studies may be because the participants were followed up for a relatively short period of time.

In addition, they say that while aspirin may have a protective effect against the disease, this is hard to confirm, as the number of studies specifically evaluating aspirin are too few.

Epidemiologist Dr Mahyar Etminan and colleagues from the Royal Victoria Hospital in Montreal say, “NSAIDs offer some protection against the development of Alzheimer’s disease.”

However, they add, “The appropriate dose, duration of drug use and the ratios of risk to benefit are still unclear.”

Source: British Medical Journal

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