New research conducted on tens of thousands of U.S. medical records has found an association between frequent use of the drug Gabapentin and an increased risk of dementia and mild cognitive impairment (MCI). Often prescribed for back pain as an alternative to opioids, the drug is reportedly linked to up to 85 percent higher risk of MCI and 40 percent higher risk of dementia in patients with more than 12 prescriptions. The phenomenon particularly affects adults between the ages of 35 and 64.
As noted in the press release about the study published in Scimex, to better investigate this correlation, researchers used real-time data from TriNetX, a federated health research network that collects electronic health records from 68 health care organizations in the United States.
The study compared anonymized records of 26,414 adult patients who were prescribed Gabapentin with those of an equivalent number of patients who were not prescribed the drug, all of whom had chronic low back pain, between 2004 and 2024. Demographics, preexisting conditions, and use of other analgesic medications were also considered.
Patients who had received six or more prescriptions of Gabapentin were 29 percent more likely to receive a diagnosis of dementia and 85 percent more likely to receive a diagnosis of MCI within 10 years of their initial pain diagnosis.
Stratifying the data by age, it was found that adults aged 18 to 64 years who were prescribed the drug were more than twice as likely to develop both conditions than patients who had not taken it.
The authors urge caution and recommend closer monitoring, while pointing out that the observed link has not yet been conclusively demonstrated.
