
                         Roanoke Times
                 Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.

DATE: FRIDAY, February 18, 1994                   TAG: 9402180056
SECTION: NATIONAL/INTERNATIONAL                    PAGE: A4   EDITION: METRO 
SOURCE: Associated Press
DATELINE: WASHINGTON                                LENGTH: Medium

ANTI-INFLAMMATORY DRUGS FOUND TO SLOW ONSET OF ALZHEIMER'S

Anti-inflammatory drugs used against arthritis also tend to slow or block the onset of mind-destroying Alzheimer's disease, a study suggests.

The study, to be published today in the journal Neurology, compared the drug-taking history of 50 pairs of elderly twins and found that the twin who had been taking anti-inflammatory drugs for arthritis was least affected by Alzheimer's.

"We found that the twins who had used anti-inflammatory drugs had four times greater likelihood of being the later-affected and the non-affected member of the pair," said Dr. John Breitner, a Duke University researcher and lead author of the study. "For identical twins, there was a 10-to-1 difference."

Anti-inflammatory drugs included ibuprofen, piroxicam, naproxen and some steroids that were used for arthritis in the 1950s and 1960s, but which are no longer prescribed. All of these drugs, at proper doses, tend to limit inflammation throughout the body, including the brain.

Dr. Leonard Berg, chairman of the medical advisory board of the national Alzheimer's Association, cautioned that the evidence of benefit "is not convincing enough to advise the population at large to take anti-inflammatory drugs to avoid Alzheimer's. There are side effects to these drugs."

Alzheimer's disease is a degenerative, fatal disorder in which brain cells die and patients progressively lose memory and function.

Breitner said the protective effect of the anti-inflammatory drugs was most pronounced in twin pairs in which one member developed Alzheimer's after age 71.

He said the statistical evidence was strongest in women.

"For the female pairs, all 12 pairs studied had the association where the member of the pair who used the anti-inflammatory drug did not have Alzheimer's or developed it late," said Breitner. "The probability of that occurring by chance is less than one in a thousand."

Breitner said there was not enough data for a statistically valid conclusion about the anti-Alzheimer's benefit from aspirin.

by CNB