Gout was associated with a 24% lower risk for Alzheimer's disease (AD) in a population-based study of nearly 300,000 people. The new research, published online March 4 in the Annals of the Rheumatic Diseases, builds on the Rotterdam Study, which showed an inverse relationship between risk for any type of dementia and prior serum uric acid levels. The authors, led by Na Lu, MPH, from the Clinical Epidemiology Unit, Boston University School of Medicine, and Division of Rheumatology, Allergy and Immunology, Massachusetts General Hospital, Harvard Medical School, Boston, Massachusetts, say the new data lend support to the idea that in some situations raising serum urate levels might be therapeutically useful.
Dean M. Hartley, PhD, director of science initiatives, medical and scientific relations for the Alzheimer's Association, Chicago, Illinois, told Medscape Medical News, "This study…
