A commonly prescribed medication for nerve and chronic back pain has been linked to a higher risk of dementia and mild cognitive impairment in a large observational study.
The medication is gabapentin, a drug originally developed to treat epilepsy and now widely prescribed for nerve-related pain, including some cases of chronic lower-back pain.
The findings do not prove that gabapentin causes dementia, but researchers say they raise questions about the potential long-term cognitive effects of repeated use.
What did the study find?
Researchers examined medical records of adults diagnosed with chronic low-back pain and compared people who received gabapentin prescriptions with similar patients who did not.
After statistical matching, the analysis included 26,416 patients. Those who received six or more gabapentin prescriptions had:
- 29% higher relative risk of dementia
- 85% higher relative risk of mild cognitive impairment (MCI)
The association became stronger as the number of prescriptions increased. People who received 12 or more prescriptions had about a 40% higher relative risk of dementia compared with those who received fewer prescriptions.
The finding was particularly notable in younger adults…
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