A specific class of diabetes drug appears to lower people’s risk for dementia and Parkinson’s disease, a new study shows.

Sodium-glucose cotransporter-2 (SGLT2) inhibitors, also known as gliflozins, lower blood sugar by prompting the kidneys to filter sugar out of the bloodstream and excrete it in urine, researchers said.

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But these drugs might also protect brain health, researchers found.

SGLT2 inhibitors are associated with a 20% reduced risk of Alzheimer’s disease or Parkinson’s disease, and a 30% reduced risk of dementia caused by blood vessel disease in the brain, researchers reported Sept. 18 in the journal Neurology.

“The results are generally consistent, even after adjusting for factors like blood pressure, glucose, cholesterol and kidney function,” said researcher Dr. Minyoung Lee of Yonsei University College of Medicine in Seoul, South Korea.

For the study, researchers analyzed data on nearly 359,000 people with type 2 diabetes who started taking diabetes meds between 2014 and 2019 in South Korea. People prescribed SGLT2 inhibitors were compared with people taking other oral diabetes drugs.

Alzheimer’s disease among people on SGLT2 inhibitors was just under 40 cases per 10,000 person-years, compared to about 64 cases for people on other diabetes drugs, results show. Person-years represent the number of people in the study and the amount of time each person spent in the study.

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Vascular dementia rates among people on SGLT2 inhibitors were nearly 11 cases per 10,000 person-years, compared to nearly 19 for people on other drugs.

And Parkinson’s rates were a little more than nine cases per 100,000 compared to nearly 14 for those taking other drugs.

“We know that these neurodegenerative diseases like dementia and Parkinson’s disease are common and the number of cases is growing as the population ages, and people with diabetes are at increased risk of cognitive impairment, so it’s encouraging to see that this class of drugs may provide some protection against dementia and Parkinson’s disease,” Lee said in a journal news release.

However, Lee noted that people in the study were followed for less than five years. More research is needed to see whether SGLT2 inhibitors could protect the brain long-term.