Last Updated: 2003-06-04 10:00:03 -0400 (Reuters Health)

NEW YORK (Reuters Health) - Although a number of studies have suggested common anti-inflammatory drugs may cut the risk of Alzheimer's disease, a study out Tuesday shows that two such medications do not appear to slow the disease's progression.

In the study, neither the arthritis drug rofecoxib nor the over-the-counter painkiller naproxen was able to slow mental decline in 351 patients with mild-to-moderate Alzheimer's.

Rofecoxib, sold by Merck as Vioxx, and naproxen, sold by Bayer as Aleve, are both non-steroidal anti-inflammatory drugs, or NSAIDs. Inflammation is believed to contribute to the brain damage that marks Alzheimer's, and research has suggested that NSAID use might help ward off the disease.

"We therefore were hopeful that treatment with NSAIDs would slow the disease process," said Dr. Paul S. Aisen of Georgetown University Medical Center in Washington D.C., the new study's lead author.

"Many thought that these treatments would be effective," he told Reuters Health.

However, his team found that after one year of treatment, neither rofecoxib nor naproxen decreased the rate of patients' mental decline compared with inactive treatment with a placebo.

"Disappointingly, this trial indicates that these treatments are ineffective," Aisen said.

The findings are published in the Journal of the American Medical Association.

Besides the medications' apparent lack of benefit, Aisen noted that "these drugs carry risk."

In this study, participants who took the drugs were more likely than placebo patients to experience high blood pressure, dizziness, fatigue and dry mouth. And well-established side effects of regular NSAID use include stomach upset, ulcers and bleeding.

"We recommend that individuals with Alzheimer's disease not take these drugs to treat their disease," he advised.

Still, the study findings don't mean that NSAID use won't possibly help other groups of people, Dr. Lenore J. Launer of the National Institute on Aging in Bethesda, Maryland, writes in an accompanying editorial.

"An at-risk population with a family history of Alzheimer's disease is currently under study as a part of the Alzheimer's Disease Anti-Inflammatory Prevention Trial," she notes.

"Additional rigorous trials and observational studies of NSAIDS will also help determine whether NSAIDS might be candidate drugs for other populations at risk for Alzheimer's disease," Launer adds.