Causes of Alzheimer’s disease: paracetamol (acetaminophen) today? Amphetamines tomorrow?

Phenacetin was implicated as a causative factor in Alzheimer’s disease (AD) in 1971. Although the chief metabolite, paracetamol, was earlier identified as responsible for its analgesic and antipyretic properties, a link with senile plaque formation does not appear to have been previously suspected. In common with paracetamol, so-called recreational drugs (RDs) likewise stimulate free radical activity, and might therefore pose a similar danger in terms of causing AD later in life. The case for regarding the brain as an even more delicate and vulnerable structure than currently believed, at risk especially from substances untested in man but of proven neurotoxicity in rodents and non-human primates, needs to be taken more seriously than at present.