Science discovers vaccines that help reduce the risk of Alzheimer’s disease

Researchers from the University of Houston discovered an interesting side effect of many existing vaccines: a reduced risk of developing Alzheimer’s disease in the future. According to them, this happens with prior vaccination against tetanus and diphtheria, with or without whooping cough; Herpes zoster and pneumococci.

A preprint version of the study has been published Connected recently in Alzheimer’s Disease Journal.

Credits: Strelciuk Dumitru/iStock

Several vaccines are associated with a lower risk of Alzheimer’s disease in adults age 65 and older.

The new findings come just over a year after the research team published another study, which found that people who had received at least one flu vaccine were 40% less likely than their unvaccinated peers to develop Alzheimer’s disease.

Study details

The study covered about 1.5 million people and compared vaccinated adults with adults who did not receive the vaccines. All patients were free of dementia during the two-year retrospective period and were at least 65 years old at the start of the eight-year follow-up period.

Patients who received DTaP (tetanus, diphtheria, and pertussis) vaccine were 30% less likely to develop Alzheimer’s disease than their unvaccinated peers (7.2% of vaccinated patients vs. 10.2% of unvaccinated patients developed the disease).

Similarly, shingles vaccination was associated with a 25% reduced risk of Alzheimer’s disease (8.1% of vaccinated patients versus 10.7% of unvaccinated patients).

For the pneumococcal conjugate vaccine, there was a 27% reduction in the risk of developing the disease (7.92% of vaccinated patients vs. 10.9% of unvaccinated patients).

The researchers hypothesize that by protecting the body from infection, the vaccines also prevent abnormalities in brain proteins. According to them, vaccines can change the way the immune system responds to the buildup of toxic proteins that contribute to Alzheimer’s disease.