Regular flu vaccinations reduce the risk of dementia

Several studies have indicated that people who receive a combination tetanus-diphtheria-pertussis or influenza vaccine will develop dementia more often in the following years. The effect of regular influenza vaccination has now been confirmed by a new study in which electronic patient files of more than 120,000 people were evaluated.

People over 65 who had received at least six flu vaccinations in the past 80 months were 12 percent less likely to develop dementia than their unvaccinated peers. Regular vaccination was necessary because the risk of developing dementia was similar in intermittently vaccinated people with those who were not.

How this effect occurs is still not clear. It’s possible for a flu infection in the brain to cause changes that favor dementia — if you were vaccinated and didn’t get sick in the first place, it wouldn’t. Another possibility may be that stimulating the immune system activates certain cells in the brain, which then begin to “clean up” and remove deposits that are typical of Alzheimer’s disease.

If the results of this study, which appeared in the specialist journal Vaccine, are confirmed, influenza vaccination would be an effective preventive measure against Alzheimer’s disease – not only inexpensive and low-risk, but also more effective than any other preventive measure currently available.

What do I do 10.1016 / j.vaccine.2021.08.046