Ibuprofen and Alzheimer’s Disease

By Alice R. Laule, M.D.

For quite awhile a connection has been noted between ibuprofen and Alzheimer’s Disease (AD). Most of us, me included, assumed that since Alzheimer’s represents an inflammatory condition of the brain that leads to worsening of Beta-amyloid 42 deposition in the brain, that the reason ibuprofen worked is that it is an anti-inflammatory.

          This is one of those interesting facts I pick up as I read and study, and I wanted to share it with you. Ibuprofen does not reduce Alzheimer’s disease because it is an anti-inflammatory. Rather, it reduces AD because it has the unusual ability to change the place that beta-amyloid precursor protein cleaves. So we can have Beta-amyloid 40, or Beta-amyloid 39 forming, but it spares us the formation of the brain killing Beta-amyloid 42. Therefore, as the data show, a person taking 200-600 mg. of ibuprofen each day has an 80% reduction of the chances of developing AD. All of which makes me feel better about that occasional ibuprofen tablet I take.

Stay healthy.

Alice R. Laule, M.D.

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