A new study from the University of Cambridge suggests that drugs like ibuprofen and antibiotics could be used to reduce the risk of dementia. The reason? It’s all down to their capacity to lower levels of inflammation, which researchers are increasingly linking to a host of chronic diseases, including dementia.
Scientists found that several common medications could affect the risk of the condition, with anti-inflammatory drugs such as ibuprofen top of the list. The role of inflammation in dementia is still being studied, but scientists already know that some genes that increase the risk of dementia are part of inflammatory pathways.
For the latest research, scientists examined 14 previous studies which tracked the health of more than 130 million people. They also examined prescription data. While more work is needed, the results so far suggest that there are several effective drugs that could be repurposed to treat dementia, and in the process, save millions of pounds and decades spent on developing drugs from scratch.
Dementia is on the rise, with predictions that 1 in 3 people born in the UK today will develop dementia in their lifetime and around 1.4 million people will suffer from the disease by 2040. “If we can find drugs that are already licensed for other conditions, then we can get them into trials and – crucially – may be able to make them available to patients much, much faster than we could do for an entirely new drug,” says Dr Ben Underwood from the University of Cambridge.
It’s exciting news – but Dr Julia Dudley, head of research strategy at Alzheimer's Research UK, advises caution, saying researchers will still need to confirm their findings in clinical trials before they can be used in treatment. There’s no doubt, though, that this is a welcome and hopeful first step on the long road to preventing and treating dementia.
Disclaimer: Ibuprofen has not been approved for reducing dementia risk or other off-label use; please always read the label before taking over-the-counter drugs.
