India, May 13 -- A new study, published in the journal Alzheimer's and Dementia, suggests that a common type of HIV medication called nucleoside reverse transcriptase inhibitors or NRTIs might lower the risk of developing Alzheimer's disease.
Researchers looked at medical data from over 270,000 people aged 50 and older. They found that for each year a person took NRTIs, their risk of getting Alzheimer's went down by 6 percent to 13 percent.
Although this study doesn't prove that NRTIs cause the risk reduction since it's based on observation, not a clinical trial, the link is strong enough to explore further.
Researchers noted that one possible reason this might work has to do with inflammation in the brain. Special proteins called inflam...