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A study published in the “Journal of Alzheimer’s Disease” indicates that people vaccinated with the flu vaccine may have a lower risk of Alzheimer’s. Researchers at UTHealth Houston’s McGovern School of Medicine don’t know why, but they have found a lower incidence of this disease in vaccinated people than in unvaccinated people.
“We found that flu vaccination in older adults reduces the risk of developing Alzheimer’s disease for several years. The strength of this protective effect increased with the number of years a person received an annual flu shot; in other words, the rate of developing Alzheimer’s was lower among those who routinely received the flu vaccine each year,” says Avram S.
Bukhbinder, first author of the article.
“Future research will need to assess whether influenza vaccination is also associated with the rate of symptom progression in patients who already have Alzheimer’s dementia.”
The study, which comes two years after researchers at UTHealth Houston discovered a possible link between the flu shot and reduced risk of Alzheimer’s disease, looked at a much larger sample than previous research. , which included 935,887 flu-vaccinated patients and 935,887 unvaccinated patients.
During the four-year follow-up appointments, about 5.1% of the flu-vaccinated patients were found to have developed Alzheimer’s disease. For their part, 8.5% of the unvaccinated patients had developed Alzheimer’s disease during follow-up.
According to Bukhbinder and lead author Paul. E. Schulz, these results highlight the strong protective effect of the influenza vaccine against Alzheimer’s disease. However, the mechanisms underlying this process require further study.
“Since there is evidence that several vaccines can protect against Alzheimer’s disease, we think that this is not a specific effect of the influenza vaccine,” says Schulz. “In contrast, we believe that the immune system is complex, and some disorders, such as pneumonia, can activate it in a way that worsens Alzheimer’s disease. But other things that activate the immune system may do so in a different way, which protects against Alzheimer’s disease. It is clear that we have to learn more about how the immune system worsens or improves the outcomes of this disease.”
Previous studies have found a lower risk of dementia associated with previous exposure to various vaccines in adulthood, such as those for tetanus, polio and herpes, in addition to the flu and other vaccines.
Furthermore, as more time passes since the introduction of the Covid-19 vaccine and longer follow-up data becomes available, Bukhbinder says it will be worth investigating whether there is a similar association between Covid-19 vaccination and disease risk. Alzheimer’s.
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