New research suggests that regular use of anti-inflammatory drugs may dramatically reduce the risk of developing Parkinson’s disease. Dr Honglei Chen of Harvard School of Public Health and colleagues found that people who regularly took non-steroidal anti-inflammatory drugs (NSAIDs), such as aspirin, ibuprofen, indomethacin and naproxen, were 45% less likely to develop Parkinson’s compared to people who did not take NSAIDs. The lowest risk of the neurodegenerative disease was seen among people who took two or more aspirins each day. The authors say that the results suggest that inflammation plays an important role in the development of Parkinson’s disease, and that they support previous experiments, which have produced evidence to suggest that NSAIDs exert a protective effect on the brain cells that are selectively destroyed by the disease.
SOURCE/REFERENCE: Arch Neurol 2003;60:1059-1064.
