The effects of proton pump inhibitors on neuropsychological functioning

Abstract

Objective

The current study investigated the effects of proton pump inhibitor use and apolipoprotein ε4 carrier status on changes in neuropsychological functioning in healthy adults with familial risk factors for dementia.

Methods

As part of the Wisconsin Registry for Alzheimer’s Prevention study, 1,573 subjects were administered questionnaires on their medical history, gave blood samples, and were administered neuropsychological assessments during four visits over a 10–15 year period. Linear mixed models assessed if non-users, subjects who stopped, started, or consistently used proton pump inhibitors differed in changes in working memory, verbal memory, psychomotor speed, and cognitive flexibility.

Results

The models did not yield significant main effects for proton pump inhibitor use or interaction effects between proton pump inhibitor use and apolipoprotein ε4 carrier status on a decline in memory or processing speed. An interaction effect suggested stopping a proton pump inhibitor may be protective against declines in cognitive flexibility among non-carriers.

Conclusions

Although stopping a proton pump inhibitor use may have mild protective effects on executive functioning for non-apolipoprotein ε4 carriers, proton pump inhibitor use was not associated with memory decline in a sample of subjects with familial risk factors for dementia.

Keywords:

• Cognitive functioning
• GERD
• proton pump inhibitors
• psychomotor speed
• verbal memory
• working memory

Acknowledgements

The content is solely the responsibility of the authors and does not necessarily represent the official views of NIH. The authors would like to thank the Wisconsin Registry for Alzheimer’s Prevention (WRAP) study team who was responsible for obtaining the dataset.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).

Data availability statement

Researchers interested in obtaining data from the WRAP can do so by applying to obtain resources on their website. More information can be found here: https://www.adrc.wisc.edu/researchers.

Additional information

Funding

The current study is an updated version of a manuscript in ProQuest Dissertation Publishing. The project described was supported by the Clinical Translational Science Award (CTSA) program, though the National Center for Advancing Translational Sciences (NCATS) grant UL1TR00427.