Types of Anti-inflammatory Agents
Anti-inflammatory medications are of two types: steroidal and nonsteroidal. It may seem odd that steroids, which in high concentrations can damage the hippocampus, can be therapeutic for patients with dementia. However, the fact that inflammation does occur in the brains of these patients suggests that steroids, which have extremely powerful anti-inflammatory properties, may indeed be effective treatments. Drs. Paul Aisen and Ken Davis at the Mount Sinai Medical Center in New York certainly think so, and they recently completed a placebo-controlled clinical trial using prednisone, a synthetic steroid, in Alzheimer’s disease. However, the trial results were negative: prednisone showed no advantage over placebo in these patients.
The other approach is to use nonsteroidal anti-inflammatory medications (NSAIDs) like acetylsalicylic acid (aspirin), indomethacin (Indocin), or ibuprofen (Motrin). Acetaminophen (Tylenol) has weak anti-inflammatory properties compared to aspirin, even though it has similar pain-killing strength.
Lessons from Arthritis
In rheumatoid arthritis, the kind that causes swelling and deformity of the fingers and toes, as well as the hands and feet, the body’s immune system mistakenly identifies joint tissue parts as alien and attacks them with a vengeance. Since many people who suffer from this disease regularly have to take high doses of anti-inflammatory medications, the question arises: do these people have a lower prevalence of dementia, especially Alzheimer’s disease, compared to the rest of the population?
Patrick McGeer and his colleagues at the University of British Columbia in Canada conducted a comprehensive review of seventeen studies conducted in nine countries to evaluate the associations between the use of anti-inflammatory medications and Alzheimer’s disease. They concluded that the use of either NSAIDs or steroids cuts the risk of having Alzheimer’s disease by approximately half. This finding held up whichever way the data were analyzed: looking at the presence of rheumatoid arthritis alone, the use of either NSAIDs or steroids, or a combination of these treatments. Some of these effects of nonsteroidal medications in Alzheimer’s disease and stroke may also apply to treatment and prevention of mild memory loss.
Taken From: The Memory Program How to Prevent Memory Loss
and Enhance Memory Power
