Lower Parkinson's Risk in Patients on Ibuprofen

March 2, 2011— -- Patients who took ibuprofen for long periods of time were less likely to be diagnosed with Parkinson's disease later, researchers say.

No such relationship was seen for other common pain relievers including aspirin or acetaminophen, according to the analysis of six years of data on some 136,000 participants in the Nurses' Health Study and the Health Professionals Follow-Up Study, published online in Neurology.

According to Dr. Xiang Gao of Brigham and Women's Hospital in Boston and colleagues, those taking ibuprofen at least twice a week had about a 40 percent lower risk for developing Parkinson's.

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But neither the study authors nor other researchers suggested that people should start taking ibuprofen to ward off Parkinson's disease on the basis of these findings.

In an accompanying editorial, Dr. James H. Bower of the Mayo Clinic in Rochester, Minn., and Dr. Beate Ritz of the University of California Los Angeles, scoffed at the idea.

They likened the study's finding to earlier results showing that hyperuricemic patients have lower rates of Parkinson's disease.

"Are we ready to tell our patients with Parkinson's disease that they should start taking ibuprofen? Absolutely not. Nor should we tell them to start smoking, drinking coffee, and eating liver paté in hopes of developing gout," they wrote.

The editorial reminded readers that ibuprofen has significant, well-known risks including liver toxicity and gastric ulcers.

Physicians contacted by MedPage Today and ABC News voiced similar skepticism.

"This represents another in a long line of ... epidemiological studies which purport to demonstrate risk factors for Parkinson's disease," Dr. William Weiner, chief of neurology at the University of Maryland's medical center, said in an email. "These studies do not prove that this is a risk factor and only show an association."