Some immunizations can quietly protect us from cognitive decline.
How he can do the medicine, it is mysterious scientists to desperately decide. A new study of two adult vaccines gives us a crucial clue.
A retrospective cohort survey includes more than 130,000 people in the United States. He reveals that the herpes zoster vaccine (called Shingrix) and the vaccine for the respiratory syncytial virus (RSV) (Arexyv) are associated with a reduced risk of dementia compared to the annual flu vaccine.
Related: New Studies Relations General Medicines with reduced risk of dementia
Both Shingrix and Arexyv are recommended for adult adults and contain Adjuvant AS01, which helps to stimulate the immune system after vaccination. The bracelet vaccine doesn’t.
As the connection to dementia was noticed shortly after receiving JAB, it is unlikely that the protection of vaccines from a direct viral exposure will be behind the relationship of dementia.
Instead, finds from the University of Oxford suggest that “AD01 ADUANANT plays a direct role in reducing the risk of dementia.”
Within 18 months after receiving the vaccine with Shingrix alone, participants showed an 18 percent reduction in the risk of dementia compared to those who received only the flu vaccine.
Meanwhile, those who have received the RSV vaccine show a 29 percent reduction in the risk of dementia compared to the flu vaccine.
The participants who received both the vaccine against Arexiv showed a 37 percent reduction in risk.
This combined effect is not statistically greater than a vaccine in itself. In other words, the protection of two viruses did not significantly increase protection against dementia.
The results suggest [target virus]”, Write the authors of the study led by psychiatrist Maxim Ticket at the University of Oxford.
If this is true, then certain vaccines can prevent dementia by acting important pathways in the immune system.
YouTube miniature
The conclusions are aligned with the hypothesis: this dementia is not really a brain disease, but a disorder of the immune system in the brain.
Perhaps vaccines can help start and work again, even if a threatening virus never appears.
In recent years, studies have shown that exposure to several common viruses, such as those behind cold wounds, herpes zoster, mono, pneumonia and Covid-19, can lead to a higher risk of cognitive decline along the road. In addition, vaccines appear to reduce this risk by a considerable amount.
But why this is a mystery.
In 2024, for example, a United Kingdom study found that Shingrix slowed the start of dementia by 17 percent than the older, less effective shingles vaccines.
At that time, this was interpreted by showing that the more effective herpes zoster vaccine was to reduce viral exposure, the more the brain is protected from a cognitive decrease.
However, this older version of the herpes zoster vaccine (called Zostavax) does not include the AS01 immune Bester and this may have influenced the results.
In the United States, it is usually recommended that adults over 50 years of age receive two doses of shingles for shingles to protect themselves from the Varicella-Zoster virus. This is the same virus that causes chicken pox and can lie latent in the brain for years before it reappears in adults.
It is also recommended that adults over 75 years receive RSV vaccine.
Both vaccines can protect against dangerous infections, but it may not be all they do.
“It is probably both shingles and RSV vaccines to provide some defense against dementia,” concludes Takket and his colleagues.
“The mechanisms that underlie this protection remain to be determined.”
Vaccines have saved shocking 154 million lives around the world in the last half century from deadly viruses.
If we are lucky, this is just the tip of the iceberg.
The study has been published in Npj vaccinesS