Elderly individuals with Gout less likely to develop Dementia
KOREA: Gout patients are less likely to develop dementia than age- and sex-matched peers, a database study published in Arthritis Care & Research.
Various studies show that the prevalence and incidence rates of Gout, a metabolic and inflammatory disease, are rapidly increasing worldwide. Few studies have explored the association of gout with dementia but yielded mixed results: some show no association, while others have found a heightened risk for dementia. Uric acid (elevated in active gout) is an antioxidant, and thus hypothetically could be neuroprotective in the brain but the inflammation that causes gout's clinical symptoms may contribute to neuropathology. Across many studies, gout seemed to promote vascular dementia especially.
Ji Hyoun Kim and colleagues at Chungbuk National University Hospital, South Korea conducted a retrospective cohort study aimed to investigate the association between gout and dementia. They selected 5,052 gout patients and 25,260 age- and sex-matched controls from the National Health Insurance Service–National Sample Cohort (NHIS-NSC) database for the study.
The incidence and risk of dementia were evaluated by reviewing the NHIS records. A subgroup analysis according to age group (<65 or ≥65 years old) based on the age of 65, the standard for elderly and non-elderly groups and sex was also performed.
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