- Recent research from UTHealth Houston suggests that the administration of some vaccinations, including those for tetanus, diphtheria, pertussis (whooping cough), shingles (herpes zoster), and pneumococcus, are associated with a reduced risk of developing Alzheimer’s disease.
- Previous research revealed that individuals who had received at least one influenza vaccine had a 40% lower probability of developing Alzheimer’s disease compared to those who had not received any vaccination, leading researchers to investigate other vaccines.
- These new findings are particularly notable as they point to a practical and accessible way for Alzheimer’s prevention, emphasizing the advantages of routine adult vaccinations.
In a new study whose results appeared in the Journal of Alzheimer’s Disease, researchers found that several vaccines commonly given to adults were similarly linked to a decreased likelihood of developing Alzheimer’s disease.
Scientists from the Neurocognitive Disorders Center at McGovern Medical School in Houston, TX, explained that both their team and other experts in the field hypothesize that the immune system could be responsible for instigating dysfunction in brain cells in Alzheimer’s disease.
The findings from this new study suggest that vaccination might have a broader impact on the immune system, leading to a reduced risk of developing the disease.
To explore this hypothesis, the researchers conducted a retrospective cohort study involving patients who were dementia-free for a period of 2 years prior and were at least 65 years old at the commencement of an 8-year follow-up period.
They carried out a comparison between two groups of patients, one group vaccinated against tetanus, diphtheria, and pertussis (Tdap/Td), herpes zoster or shingles (HZ), or with pneumococcal vaccines, and another group that remained unvaccinated, using propensity score matching to ensure the groups were similar.
When the researchers looked at different people, they found…
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