Nonsteroidal antiinflammatory drug use and the risk for Parkinson’s disease

We investigated whether nonsteroidal antiinflammatory drug use was associated with a lower risk for Parkinson’s disease (PD) in a large cohort of US men and women. PD risk was lower among ibuprofen users than nonusers. Compared with nonusers, the relative risks were 0.73 for users of fewer than 2 tablets/week, 0.72 for 2 to 6.9 tablets/week, and 0.62 for 1 or more tablets/day (p trend = 0.03). No association was found between the use of aspirin, other nonsteroidal antiinflammatory drugs, or acetaminophen and PD risk. The results suggest that ibuprofen use may delay or prevent the onset of PD.