“There are reasons to believe that the treatment could have a positive effect on cognition, for example by improving blood flow and reducing small-scale damage in the brain,” Maria Eriksdotter, a professor at Karolinska Institutet who led the study, said in a statement.<\/p>\n
Read More on Health<\/p>\n
Newsweek reached out to Karolinska Institutet for more information.<\/p>\n
Why the Two Conditions Are Often Linked<\/strong><\/p>\n Atrial fibrillation<\/a>, a common heart rhythm disorder among older adults, frequently occurs alongside Alzheimer’s disease. <\/p>\n Doctors typically prescribe blood-thinning medication to atrial fibrillation patients to lower their risk of blood clots. Earlier research had suggested that anticoagulant treatment might reduce the risk of developing dementia in the first place<\/a>, but scientists knew far less about how these drugs affect people who already have Alzheimer’s.<\/p>\n Researchers drew on data from SveDem, Sweden’s national quality register for cognitive disorders and dementia, examining 7,308 people diagnosed with both atrial fibrillation and Alzheimer’s disease. <\/p>\n Participants were sorted into three matched groups: those taking NOACs, those taking warfarin, and those taking no anticoagulant medication at all. Cognitive function was tracked over time using the Mini-Mental State Examination (MMSE), a standard test used to measure memory and thinking skills.<\/p>\n What the Results Showed<\/strong><\/p>\n Patients on NOACs saw their cognitive decline slow by just over 0.2 MMSE points per year compared with those on warfarin or no treatment at all.<\/p>\n The benefits extended beyond cognition. Patients treated with NOACs also had a lower risk of death, stroke, blood clots and fractures compared with those who received no anticoagulant treatment. Warfarin was also linked to lower risks of death, stroke and blood clots, but it came with a higher risk of major bleeding than NOACs.<\/p>\n England-based general practitioner, Dr Mohammad Bakhtiar, spoke with Newsweek about the findings.<\/p>\n “Over 7,000 people is large enough that the signal is hard to dismiss as noise,” he said. “That makes the data more reliable than the usual small clinic series.<\/p>\n “What I take from the study is encouraging evidence for the newer anticoagulants over warfarin in this group. The cognitive difference is modest, but it sits alongside fewer strokes, clots and deaths, and less major bleeding than warfarin. For GPs deciding between a NOAC and warfarin in someone with Alzheimer\u2019s and atrial fibrillation, that is useful.”<\/p>\n The researchers cautioned that, because the study was observational, it cannot prove that the drugs directly caused the slower decline. Some factors that may have influenced both which drug a patient was prescribed and their eventual health outcomes could not be fully accounted for. Some patients also may have switched between medications during the course of the study, which followed participants over time. All in all, while they remain optimistic, they acknowledge the promising results require further studies.<\/p>\n “We should read observational studies cautiously,” Bakhtiar added. “People who get a NOAC are often different from people who get nothing. They may be fitter, better supported, or under more active specialist care. Some patients also switched drugs during follow-up.<\/p>\n “So, the honest line is association, not proof. NOACs were linked with slower decline. We do not know they caused it.”<\/p>\n He advises that patients excited by the news do not start, stop or switch their current medications because of this paper. <\/p>\n The study was funded by several organizations, including the Swedish Research Council, the Swedish Brain Foundation, CIMED, ALF project funding and Karolinska Institutet.<\/p>\n Reference<\/strong><\/p>\n Eriksdotter, M., et al. (2026). Oral anticoagulants, cognition, and clinical outcomes in atrial fibrillation and Alzheimer\u2019s disease: a Swedish nationwide study. European Heart Journal. https:\/\/doi.org\/10.1093\/eurheartj\/ehag584. <\/p>\n Contact Newsweek editors on this story: Marc Vargas<\/a> and Gray R. Thomas<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"A blood-thinning medication already taken by millions of people for an irregular heartbeat may also be helping to…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":636307,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":"","_share_on_mastodon":"0"},"categories":[274],"tags":[5194,868,18,135,268907,19,17,462,96,6425,94],"class_list":["post-636306","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-medication","tag-alzheimers","tag-dementia","tag-eire","tag-health","tag-health-and-science","tag-ie","tag-ireland","tag-medication","tag-medicine","tag-stroke","tag-treatment"],"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/636306","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=636306"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/636306\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/636307"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=636306"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=636306"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=636306"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}![\"MRI](\"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/08\/GettyImages-2207260918.jpg\"\/)
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