Anti-inflammatories ‘may reduce’ Parkinson’s risk
American scientists have uncovered evidence regular use of non-steroidal anti-inflammatory drugs (NSAIDs), such as ibruprofen and aspirin, lowers the risk of developing Parkinson’s disease.
It has been thought for some time that anti-inflammatories may mitigate the risk of the developing the degenerative neurological condition, which affects around 120 000 in the UK and causes difficulties in controlling movements such as walking and talking.
Post mortem examinations on Parkinson’s sufferers show that inflammation is an important part of the disease, explains lead author Honglei Chen from the Harvard School of Public Health.
“There is experimental evidence that NSAIDs are protective for the cells that are selectively destroyed in Parkinson’s disease, but there’s been no human epidemiologic research to support this idea”.
Dr Chen and her team monitored over 44 000 men and nearly 99 000 women for 14 year and 18 years respectively, and biennial questionnaires were used to determine the frequency of NSAIDs use.
During the course of the study 236 men and 179 women developed Parkinson’s disease.
Analysis showed that that men and women who took non-aspirin NSAIDs regularly were at a 45% lower risk of developing Parkinson’s than non-users.
A similar decrease was found in those taking two or more aspirin per day compared to non-users, but those consuming smaller amounts did not enjoy any benefit.
At the beginning of the study 6.1% of men and 3.7% of women were regular non-aspirin NSAIDs users, but increasing benefits were observed with longer duration of use.
Fellow researcher Alberto Ascherio points out that the next step is to determine whether these drugs benefit people who have already developed Parkinson’s, and this will be undertaken through randomised trials.
The findings appear in the August 2003 issue of The Archives of Neurology.
