Study indicates NSAIDs may protect against Alzheimer’s in people with healthy brains.

WebMD (7/16, Laino) reported that, according to a study presented at an international conference on Alzheimer’s, taking the nonsteroidal anti-inflammatory medication (NSAID) “naproxen cuts the risk of developing Alzheimer’s disease by two-thirds. Celebrex [celecoxib] also appeared to help brain function, though that finding could have been due to chance.” For the study, researchers from the University of Washington-Seattle performed a “follow-up analysis” of data and participants in the “large Alzheimer’s Disease Anti-inflammatory Prevention Trial, in which healthy people were randomly assigned to take naproxen, Celebrex, or a placebo,” with the goal of determining “if taking NSAIDs could prevent Alzheimer’s.” The investigators discovered that “many of the people taking NSAIDs who developed Alzheimer’s disease early on had undiagnosed mild cognitive impairment, or memory loss, when they entered the study.” Therefore, the authors concluded that while “NSAIDs are harmful to people who already have signs and symptoms of mental decline,” for those “with healthy brains, NSAIDs appear to protect against the development of Alzheimer’s disease.”