Researchers from the University of Iowa (UI) Health Care have suggested that certain drugs used to treat enlarged prostates have the potential to decrease the risk of dementia with Lewy bodies (DLB).
Published in Neurology, the study revealed that three enlarged prostate drugs were able to increase the energy production in brain cells.
Affecting one in every 1,000 people per year, DLB is the second most common type of dementia, which occurs when protein deposits called Lewy bodies develop in nerve cells in the brain, affecting thinking, memory and movement.
Researchers identified more than 643,000 men with no history of DLB who were newly starting one of six drugs used to treat benign prostatic hyperplasia and followed the participants for around three years from when they started taking the medication until they left the database or developed DLB.
The observational study found that the already-approved Abbott’s Hytrin (terazosin), Pfizer’s Cardura (doxazosin) and Sanofi’s Uroxatral (alfuzosin) boosted the energy production in brain cells, which could help to slow or prevent neurodegenerative diseases including DLB and Parkinson’s disease (PD), while the three other drugs, tamsulosin and two 5-alpha-reductase inhibitors (5ARIs), finasteride and dutasteride, did not.
Men who took terazosin had around a 40% lower risk of developing DLB versus men taking tamsulosin and about a 37% reduction in risk compared to men taking 5ARIs, with no statistically significant difference in risk between men taking tamsulosin and ARIs.
“If terazosin and these similar medications can help slow this progression – if not outright preventing the disease – this would be important to preserving cognitive function and quality of life in people with DLB,” said lead study author, Jacob Simmering, UI assistant professor, internal medicine.
Previous studies have already linked certain drugs and treatments to other neurodegenerative conditions.
In February, researchers from University College London revealed that erectile dysfunction drugs could also be linked to a reduced risk of developing Alzheimer’s disease (AD), the most common form of dementia.
Of nearly 270,000 men over the age of 40, those who were prescribed phosphodiesterase 5 inhibitors were 18% less likely to develop AD compared to those who were not.