Pain Medications May Not Help Protect Against Dementia

Many of the elderly in America suffer from the degenerative disease known as Alzheimer’s. Previous research suggested the elderly who want to avoid Alzheimer’s disease might want to try taking daily doses of certain painkillers such as naproxen and ibuprofen, but new information is suggesting that this might not be the best idea.

Dr. Eric B. Larson, the executive director of the Group Health Center for Health Studies in Seattle, said, “If people are thinking, ‘Should I take these to prevent dementia?’, the answer based on our study would be no.” However, he also stated that the people who already take the medications known as non-steroidal anti-inflammatory drugs or NSAIDs for pain should not stop using them based on this information.


Previous studies conducted have shown that the medications, which also include aspirin—which wasn’t included in the new study—seem to have the power to help prevent Alzheimer’s disease in some cases, although the drugs do not seem to help the people who have already been diagnosed with the disease or those who have developed it quickly.

The relationship between the NSAIDs and Alzheimer’s disease appears to be much more complex that was previously believed, the authors stated. The finding of this new study appear in the April 22nd online issue of Neurology.

In this study, the team in Seattle examined the medical records of more than 2,700 people that were age 65 and above. Approximately 90 percent of the patients were Caucasian and members of a Washington state medical insurance group as early as the year 1977. The researchers checked that patients use of NSAIDs and found that 351 of them were heavy users, defined as being prescribed at least 500 daily does over a period of two years, when they were enrolled in this study. Another 107 patients started using the NSAIDs more heavily later on. The medications in question are naproxen (Aleve), ibuprofen (Advil) and many others.

The people that used these medications extensively were 66 percent more likely to develop dementia compared to those who didn’t, according to the statistics, which were adjusted to account for the number of the participants that had certain medical conditions, among other factors. The medications themselves may not be the main problem, instead, Larson suggests that they could be a sign of more chronic medical issues. He said, “They heavy users [of painkillers] had more diabetes, more arthritis, more signs of heart failure. It’s very likely that what you’re seeing is people using these medications because they’re becoming to fail in their life.”

Dr. Steven Vlad, who is an epidemiology and rheumatology researcher at the Boston University School of Medicine, said that the new findings are very much contrary to what many other studies have found, but it is still uncertain how to fit them into previous research. As for the big picture, he stated, “the practical, day-to-day utility of this study is small. We just don’t know enough yet.”

He also said that he agrees with Larson that people should not take the medications purely to help prevent Alzheimer’s disease, especially since the drugs pose the risks of bleeding, kidney disease, and gastrointestinal ulcers. The biggest issue at this point is that we still don’t know how to balance the potential benefits of these medications against the known risks, Vlad said.

The next question is, What to do? Larson said that the best strategies to help prevent dementia are still the usual suspects which include regular exercise, not smoking and getting control of blood pressure. He said, “These things are really common sense. Even in late life, they probably do benefit your brain from the standpoint of health.”