A common medication most people keep at home was flagged in the study (Image: Getty)
Common anti-inflammatory drugs such as ibuprofen may cut risk, a major medicines study suggests.
Researchers investigated whether existing treatments already used for other ailments could be repurposed to treat dementia.
Using health data from more than 130 million people, they found that people who took more , antiviral drugs and appeared less likely to be diagnosed with the brain-wasting condition.
Experts at the universities of Cambridge and Exeter said the finding supported the hypothesis that common dementias can be triggered by viral or bacterial infections.
Anti-inflammatory drugs such as ibuprofen were also found to be associated with reduced risk. is increasingly thought to contribute to a wide range of diseases, and its role in dementia is supported by the fact that some genes that increase the risk are part of inflammatory pathways.
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The study could not prove that the drugs had lowered patients’ risk of dementia. But Dr Ben Underwood, from the Department of Psychiatry at the University of Cambridge, said such analysis was a good place to start looking for drugs with the potential to be repurposed.
He added: “We urgently need new treatments to slow the progress of dementia, if not to prevent it.
“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.
“The fact they are already available is likely to reduce cost and therefore make them more likely to be approved for use in the .”
The team found conflicting evidence for some drugs. Some medications and were associated with a decreased risk of dementia and others with increased risk.
Dr Ilianna Lourida, from the University of Exeter, said: “Because a particular drug is associated with an altered risk of dementia, it doesn’t necessarily mean that it causes or indeed helps in dementia.
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“We know that diabetes increases your risk of dementia, for example, so anyone on medication to manage their glucose levels would naturally also be at a higher risk of dementia – but that doesn’t mean the drug increases your risk.
“It’s important to remember that all drugs have benefits and risks. You should never change your medicine without discussing this first with your doctor, and you should speak to them if you have any concerns.”
Commenting on the study, the Alzheimer’s Society’s associate director of research and innovation Dr Richard Oakley said repurposing drugs “could save millions of pounds and decades it takes to develop a new dementia drug from scratch”.
He added: “This research provides some initial groundwork and indicates which drugs have potential for being repurposed for dementia and should be prioritised for further investigation.
“But we can’t draw definite conclusions from this study alone. This was an observational study so more work is needed to understand the careful balance between how the drugs work, their specific doses, interactions with other drugs and the individual’s own health, and how that can impact a person’s risk of developing dementia.
“Clinical trials will help to answer some of these questions in the context of dementia.”
The findings were published in the journal Alzheimer’s and Dementia: Translational Research & Clinical Interventions.