People with gout may have a reduced risk of Alzheimer’s, a study published today shows.

The research, led by Hyon Choi from Harvard Medical School, suggests that the antioxidant effects of uric acid may have neuroprotective benefits.

Using data from a UK electronic medical record database (THIN) 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 a comparison group  matched for BMI, age and gender.

After adjusting for smoking, alcohol use, comorbidities, socio-economic status and medication use the researchers discovered a 24% (HR 0.76) lower risk of Alzheimer’s disease among people with a history of gout.

The findings “support the proposed hypothesis that supplementary use of the metabolic precursor to uric acid, like inosine or hypoxanthine, could prevent and attenuate the progression of AD,” they concluded in the study published in the Annals of the Rheumatic Diseases. 

Speaking with the limbic Graeme Jones from the Menzies Institute in Tasmania said while the study was intriguing it was “a bit counterintuitive” given that uric acid has been linked to cardiovascular disease.

 “If you treat gout with allopurinol or other drugs you seem to decrease the risk of cardiovascular disease. So why would you have a bad association with CVD and a protective one with Alzheimer’s?”

“Is it because they’re dying from CVD before they get to the age where they develop Alzheimer’s,” he asked.

Nevertheless, as Jones points out, the absolute risk reduction seen in the study is quite low.

“It’s 24% of whatever the background risk is, which isn’t going to be high — probably 0.2%,” he said.

The study was certainly interesting and carried out by a well respected research group, but the findings needed confirming in other studies, he said.

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