Imagine gout patients as fearless defenders, fighting off the enemies of dementia, Alzheimer’s, and vascular dementia. A team of researchers gathered evidence from six cohort studies, examining over 2 million individuals, to assess the connection between gout and these conditions. The analysis revealed that gout patients had a lower risk of all-cause dementia, Alzheimer’s disease, and vascular dementia compared to those without gout. This was particularly true for those gout patients who took medication. Although the evidence quality is generally low, the sensitivity analysis confirmed the robustness of the results with little indication of publication bias. However, more studies are needed to understand the mechanisms behind this association and to provide further validation. Explore the underlying research to uncover more about this intriguing link between gout and decreased risk of these cognitive disorders! Keep those defenses up!

ObjectivesThe association between gout and dementia, Alzheimer’s disease (AD), or vascular dementia (VD) is not fully understood. The aim of this meta-analysis was to evaluate the risk of all-cause dementia, AD, and VD in gout patients with or without medication.MethodsData sources were PubMed, Embase, the Cochrane Library, and reference lists of included studies. This meta-analysis included cohort studies assessing whether the risk of all-cause dementia, AD, and VD was associated with gout. The risk of bias was assessed using the Newcastle-Ottawa Quality Assessment Scale (NOS). The Grading of Recommendations Assessment, Development, and Evaluation (GRADE) system was used to access the overall certainty of evidence. Risk ratios (RR) with 95% confidence intervals (CI) were pooled using a random-effects model, and publication bias was assessed with funnel plots and Egger’s test.ResultsA total of six cohort studies involving 2,349,605 individuals were included in this meta-analysis, which were published between 2015 and 2022. The pooling analysis shows that the risk of all-cause dementia was decreased in gout patients [RR = 0.67, 95% CI (0.51, 0.89), I2 = 99%, P = 0.005, very low quality], especially in gout patients with medication [RR = 0.50, 95% CI (0.31, 0.79), I2 = 93%, P = 0.003, low quality]. The risk of AD [RR = 0.70, 95% CI (0.63, 0.79), I2 = 57.2%, P = 0.000, very low quality] and VD [RR = 0.68, 95% CI (0.49, 0.95), I2 = 91.2%, P = 0.025, very low quality] was also decreased in gout patients. Despite the large heterogeneity, the sensitivity analysis indicated that the results were robust, and there was little evidence of publication bias.ConclusionThe risk of all-cause dementia, AD, and VD is decreased in gout patients, but the quality of evidence is generally low. More studies are still needed to validate and explore the mechanisms of this association.Systematic review registrationhttps://www.crd.york.ac.uk/prospero/#recordDetails, identifier: CRD42022353312.

Read Full Article (External Site)