Pain Relievers May Prevent Alzheimer's.

Sept. 23, 2002 -- Need another healthy reason to take an aspirin a day? New research shows long-term use of aspirin and some other common pain relievers may help prevent Alzheimer's. But to get the biggest protective benefits you have to take the medicines regularly and well before the symptoms of dementia set in.

The study appears in the September issue of Neurology.

Researchers followed a group of more than 3,000 adults over the age of 65 for three years and tracked their use of aspirin, other nonsteroidal anti-inflammatory drugs (NSAIDs, such as ibuprofen and naproxen), and antiheartburn medications such as Tagamet, Pepcid, and Tritec. By the end of the study, 104 participants developed Alzheimer's.

The study found people who took aspirin or other NSAIDs for more than two years before the study began were 55% less likely to develop Alzheimer's than those who didn't. And the longer the participants had taken the drugs, the more protected they were against the disease.

But people who had just started taking the drugs recently or had taken them only sporadically seemed to receive little of these protective benefits. Other drugs examined by the study were not found to reduce the likelihood of developing Alzheimer's.

Researchers say previous studies have suggested that aspirin and other NSAIDs might protect against Alzheimer's disease by reducing inflammation in the brain, while other, short-term studies have produced mixed results.

But study author Peter P. Zandi, PhD, of the Bloombeg School of Public Health at Johns Hopkins University, and colleagues say their findings show that the beneficial effects of NSAIDs in preventing Alzheimer's take a long time to accumulate and don't become apparent until years later.

In addition, the low dose of aspirin commonly prescribed to reduce heart disease risk and frequently reported among users in this study would not be large enough to have potent anti-inflammatory effects. That means the drug may work in other ways to reduce Alzheimer's risk over time.