Group of drugs cuts Alzheimer's risk by a quarter

By Will Dunham

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - Aspirin and related painkillers called non-steroidal anti-inflammatory drugs all seem to work equally well to cut a person's risk of developing Alzheimer's disease, researchers said on Wednesday.

The researchers examined data from six studies involving 13,499 people to gauge the protective effect from these commonly used drugs, called NSAIDs, on Alzheimer's risk.

Over the course of the studies, 820 of the people in the studies developed the disease.

Those who used NSAIDs, a class of pain-relieving drugs including aspirin, ibuprofen (Advil, Motrin and other brands) and naproxen (Aleve and other brands), collectively had a 23 percent lower risk for Alzheimer's in comparison to people who did not use these drugs.

But even though different types of NSAIDs have different properties, they delivered essentially the same level of risk reduction, the researchers wrote in the journal Neurology.

"When we looked at different sub-groups (of NSAIDs), we found no evidence that there was any difference in the reduction in risk," Peter Zandi of Johns Hopkins University in Baltimore said in a telephone interview.

Alzheimer's disease is the most common form of dementia among older people, and researchers have been working to understand its causes and risk factors and ways to reduce a person's chance of developing it.

It has been linked with inflammation, the process particularly targeted by NSAIDS. But they also have other, broad effects on the body.