Alarm as medication taken by thousands of Brits is linked to dementia in new research

Medications for over-active bladders that are taken by hundreds-of-thousands of Brits could increase the risk of developing dementia, new research suggests.

The pills, called anticholinergics, work by reducing the activity of certain muscles to stop the bladder contracting. 

This helps stop the spasms that can cause incontinence and the need to urinate frequently.

But a new study on almost 1million Brits suggests some types of these medications can increase the risk of dementia by about third. 

British experts analysed the health records of just over 170,000 patients in England over the age of 55 with dementia and compared them to 800,000 patients without the memory robbing disorder.

Overall, the authors found taking an anticholinergic was linked to an 18 per cent increased risk of dementia diagnosis.

However, they found the elevated risk to be slightly higher in men — 22 per cent, compared to women at 16 per cent.

Some specific types of the drugs also carried a much higher risk.

Those prescribed oxybutynin hydrochloride had a 31 per cent higher risk of dementia, and those on tolterodine tartrate had a 27 per cent increased risk.

The experts said their findings emphasised the need for medics to consider alternative treatments for overactive bladder in older patients.

NHS data suggests hundreds of thousands of prescriptions for these medications are doled out by the health service in England each month.

However, the authors, who published their research in the British Medical Journal, found that some types of anticholinergics weren’t linked to an increased chance of dementia. 

These were darifenacin, fesoterodine fumarate, flavoxate hydrochloride, propiverine hydrochloride, and trospium chloride. 

The experts also analysed a non-anticholinergic drug called mirabegron, which is also prescribed to patients with overactive bladders, but works using a different mechanism than anticholinergics.

While the scientists did find some evidence of dementia links to this drug, they noted the data wasn’t clear, and further research is needed. 

Concluding their report they said clinicians need to ‘take into account the possible long term risks and consequences of the available treatment options for an overactive bladder in older adults’.

Doctors should ‘consider prescribing alternative treatments that might be associated with a lower risk of dementia,’ they added.

The study was based on an analysis of health data from 170,742 Brits over the age of 55 with dementia who had taken an anticholinergic drug or mirabegron for three to 16 years before their dementia diagnosis. 

Each Brit with dementia was matched with a participant from an 800,000 strong control group in terms of their exact age, sex and GP practice in order to make a comparison.

The study had several limitations, the first of which is that data for exact dosage given to patients was lacking meaning the authors couldn’t fully explore if higher doses of some drugs led to an increased risk of dementia over time.

Another was the data relied on patient records which may have been unreliable or incomplete. 

The study isn’t the first to link some anticholinergics to increased dementia risk, although exactly how the drugs affect the brain isn’t fully understood.

Previous studies have highlighted oxybutynin, sold under the brands Aspire, Ditropan, Kentera, can be a particular risk as it has a smaller molecule size than other types.

This, experts say,  enables it to penetrate deeper into the brain and have a stronger affect on the sensitive tissues there. 

NHS-backed data source OpenPrescribing records about 110,000 prescriptions of oxybutynin per month at the cost to the taxpayer of just 15p per pill.

Dementia is an umbrella term used to describe a range of progressive disorders which impact memory, thinking and behaviour.

There are many types of dementia, with that linked to Alzheimer’s disease being the most common.

Dementia is a growing problem in Britain due to an ageing population, with an almost a million people estimated to be living with the condition though this predicted to increase.

The disorder is thought to cost the country some £40billion per year, a combination of health care costs and loss of income from people needing to take time off work to care for relatives. 

The new study comes just days after Brits were warned another medication, this time to manage acid reflux, is also linked to dementia.