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Antibiotics, antivirals and vaccines could be used to tackle dementia, according to experts who say repurposing drugs approved for other conditions could dramatically speed up the hunt for a cure.
The number of people living with the disease globally is forecast to almost triple to 153 million by 2050, presenting a major threat to health and social care systems.
New drugs are coming down the pipeline, but slowly, and experts say more must be done to see whether existing medicines could help prevent or treat dementia.
Dr Ben Underwood, from the University of Cambridge, said: “We urgently need new treatments to slow the progress of dementia, if not to prevent it.
“If we can find drugs that are already licensed for other conditions, then we can get them into trials and – crucially – may be able to make them available to patients much, much faster than we could do for an entirely new drug.”
In new research led by Cambridge and the University of Exeter, researchers examined studies which linked commonly used drugs to dementia risk.
They analysed data from 14 studies that tracked the health of more than 130 million people and involved 1m cases of dementia.
They also analysed prescription data and identified several drugs that appeared to be linked to dementia risk.
Overall, they found a “lack of consistency” between studies in identifying drugs that might modify a person’s risk of dementia. But they found some “candidates” that could warrant further studies.
One unexpected finding was an association between antibiotics, antivirals and vaccines, and a reduced risk of dementia. The finding supports the hypothesis that some cases of the disease may be triggered by viral or bacterial infections.
Anti-inflammatory drugs such as ibuprofen were also found to be associated with reduced risk. Inflammation is increasingly being seen to be a significant contributor to a wide range of diseases.
There was conflicting evidence for several classes of drugs, with some blood pressure medications and antidepressants and, to a lesser extent, diabetes medication associated with a decreased risk of dementia and others associated with increased risk, the researchers said.
But the study published in journal Alzheimer’s and Dementia: Translational Research and Clinical Interventions suggests there is “biological plausibility” for some medicines to be tested further.
“The association between antibiotics, antivirals and vaccines and decreased risk of dementia is intriguing,” the researchers wrote.
“Viral and bacterial infectious causes of common dementias have been proposed, supported by epidemiological data linking infection to dementia risk, antiviral drugs have been identified as some of the most promising repurposed drugs for dementia and there is increasing interest in vaccination as being generally protective.
“Our findings support these hypotheses and lend further weight to these agents as being potentially disease-modifying or preventive for dementia.”
Dr Julia Dudley, head of research strategy at Alzheimer’s Research UK, said it was too early to say if the existing drugs could be used to reduce the risk of dementia. Researchers will need to confirm the findings in clinical trials, she added.
Dr Richard Oakley, associate director of research and innovation at the Alzheimer’s Society, said: “If we can repurpose drugs that have already been shown to be safe and approved for use for other conditions, this could save millions of pounds and decades it takes to develop a new dementia drug from scratch, and get us closer to beating dementia.
“This research provides some initial groundwork and indicates which drugs have potential for being repurposed for dementia and should be prioritised for further investigation.”
