As the entire world focuses on developing a vaccine against the coronavirus, researchers in the United States have found that the flu vaccine would have a positive impact against Alzheimer’s disease.
The Alzheimer’s Association recently released a statement explaining that the pneumonia vaccine and influenza vaccine may have a positive impact on the development of Alzheimer’s disease.
Gum disease and Alzheimer’s
The researchers found that the flu vaccine was associated with a reduction in the incidence of Alzheimer’s disease by 17%. This is a unique case, but they also found that a second vaccination reduced this risk by an additional 13%. An avenue that could be interesting if further explored, according to the scientists who wrote the report.
The vaccine against pneumonia, also effective against Alzheimer’s?
On the other hand, the vaccine against pneumonia would allow patients who received it between 65 and 75 years of age to see their risk of developing Alzheimer’s disease reduced by 25 to 30%. That said, this result varies depending on the individual genotype. For vaccinated patients who were not carriers of the Alzheimer’s risk gene, the risk of one day developing this type of dementia is reduced by 40%.
The researchers emphasized the interest of exploiting the hitherto unknown potential of already existing vaccines to treat other diseases. In addition, people suffering from dementia have a greater risk of death from infections (multiplied by 6), such as flu or pneumonia for example. Vaccinating them would therefore radically reduce the risk of death.
