Gout may not sound like a pleasant condition to be afflicted with, but new research suggests it could actually reduce the risk of Alzheimer's.
The inflammatory arthritis occurs when uric acid in the blood crystallizes, but the antioxidant properties of the uric acid could also work to protect the brain, the British Medical Journal (BMJ) reported.
To further examine this link, researchers used data from The Health Improvement Network (THIN). From this data, the team looked at 3.7 million people aged 40 and over who had not been diagnosed with gout or dementia prior to the start of the follow-up. THIN is an electronic medical record database that represents the general population of the U.K. between Jan. 1, 1995, and Dec. 31, 2013.
The researchers identified 309 new cases of Alzheimer's disease among 59,224 patients with gout and 1,942 cases among 238,805 people in the comparison group of patients who did not suffer from gout.
The findings suggested individuals with a history of gout were 24% less likely to develop Alzheimer's. These findings remained true even after the researchers took into account "age, sex, BMI, socio-economic status, lifestyle factors, prior heart conditions and use of heart drugs."
"Our findings provide the first population-based evidence for the potential protective effect of gout on the risk of AD [Alzheimers' disease] and support the purported neuroprotective role of uric acid," the study authors wrote. "If confirmed by future studies, a therapeutic investigation that has been employed to prevent progression of PD [Parkinson's disease] may be warranted for this relatively common and devastating condition."
The results were published in a recent edition of the British Medical Journal.
