The Role of Acetaminophen in the Development of Dementia

Abstract

In a little over a century Alzheimer-type dementia (ATD) has grown in importance from a rare and poorly understood condition into a scourge of international dimensions, one which leads to premature mental incapacitation and the deaths of millions every year. The exponential manner in which the number of sufferers has been increasing in many parts of the world [1] rightly concerns political leaders [2]. Searches for a major risk factor for ATD have been disappointingly unsuccessful [3], although in 1971 [4] phenacetin was unambiguously implicated in its etiology. The link between ATD and the coal tar analgesics phenacetin [4] and acetaminophen, its chief metabolite [5], continues to be disregarded.