Rheumatoid arthritis patients treated with anti-inflammatory drugs are 10 times less likely to develop age-related macular degeneration (AMD), the most common form of blindness in people over 55, researchers at the University of British Columbia and University of Saskatchewan have found.
The study, recently published in the Neurobiology of Aging, is a joint effort of neurologist Dr. Patrick McGeer of UBC and rheumatologist Dr. John Sibley of the U of S.
The scientists found that that rheumatoid arthritis patients being treated with anti-inflammatory drugs were 10 times less likely to develop (AMD) than unaffected individuals in the United States, Australia, the Netherlands and the United Kingdom.
"Age-related macular degeneration is like Alzheimer's disease of the eye, with retinal deposits called drusen acting like amyloid deposits in the brain found in Alzheimer's," says McGeer, a UBC professor emeritus in the Kinsmen Laboratory of Neurological Research and expert in the use of non-steroidal anti-inflammatory drugs (NSAIDS).
The scientists reviewed 993 rheumatoid arthritis patients in Saskatchewan aged 65 years or older who, on average, had been living with the condition since age 51. Only three had developed AMD, where about 30 cases could be expected in a similarly-aged group from the general populace.
"It was natural for us to look at the rheumatoid arthritis population," says Sibley, a U of S professor of medicine and head of the division of rheumatology. "They have been followed closely for more than 40 years with particular attention paid to retinal changes because medication widely used for rheumatoid arthritis can create visual problems."
It is already accepted that NSAIDS reduce the incidence of bowel cancer. Fifteen years ago, McGeer and Sibley found the first of a growing body of evidence that NSAIDS may also help reduce the incidence of Alzheimer's. However, Sibley says this is the first time a link has been identified between anti-inflammatories and macular degeneration.