- Researchers investigated the effects of laxatives on dementia risk.
- They found that regular consumption of laxatives increases dementia risk.
- They noted that further studies are needed to confirm their findings.
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Further investigation of how using laxatives and other agents that disrupt the microbiome may affect dementia could lead to improved treatment and prevention strategies.
Recently, researchers analyzed healthcare data to see whether laxative use is linked with dementia onset. They found that regular use of laxatives is linked to a higher risk of all-cause dementia.
“This study reports individuals with more laxative use have an increased likelihood of developing dementia relative to those with less laxative use,” Russell Swerdlow, neurologist, and co-director of KU Alzheimer’s Disease Research Center, not involved in the study, told Medical News Today.
“It is interesting that people with at least one dementia-associated illness, Parkinson’s disease, experience constipation at a higher frequency than those without Parkinson’s disease,” he pointed out.
“[P]erhaps there are those who will now want to study how laxatives may cause dementia, although at least on a superficial level, it would seem to make more sense to study how the biology that underlie dementia may impact the gastrointestinal tract,” he added.
The study was published in…
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