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Flu Vaccination Linked to 40% Reduced Risk of Alzheimer's Disease - Neuroscience News
Jun 27, 2022 2 mins, 5 secs

People who received at least one influenza vaccine were 40% less likely than their non-vaccinated peers to develop Alzheimer’s disease over the course of four years, according to a new study from UTHealth Houston.

Schulz, MD, the Rick McCord Professor in Neurology at McGovern Medical School, compared the risk of Alzheimer’s disease incidence between patients with and without prior flu vaccination in a large nationwide sample of U.S.

“We found that flu vaccination in older adults reduces the risk of developing Alzheimer’s disease for several years.

The strength of this protective effect increased with the number of years that a person received an annual flu vaccine—in other words, the rate of developing Alzheimer’s was lowest among those who consistently received the flu vaccine every year,” said Bukhbinder, who is still part of Schulz’s research team while in his first year of residency with the Division of Child Neurology at Massachusetts General Hospital.

“Future research should assess whether flu vaccination is also associated with the rate of symptom progression in patients who already have Alzheimer’s dementia.”.

The study—which comes two years after UTHealth Houston researchers found a possible link between the flu vaccine and reduced risk of Alzheimer’s disease—analyzed a much larger sample than previous research, including 935,887 flu-vaccinated patients and 935,887 non-vaccinated patients.

During four-year follow-up appointments, about 5.1% of flu-vaccinated patients were found to have developed Alzheimer’s disease.

Meanwhile, 8.5% of non-vaccinated patients had developed Alzheimer’s disease during follow-up.

Additionally, as more time passes since the introduction of the COVID-19 vaccine and longer follow-up data becomes available, Bukhbinder said it will be worth investigating whether a similar association exists between COVID-19 vaccination and the risk of Alzheimer’s disease.

“Risk of Alzheimer’s Disease Following Influenza Vaccination: A Claims-Based Cohort Study Using Propensity Score Matching” by Avram S.

Risk of Alzheimer’s Disease Following Influenza Vaccination: A Claims-Based Cohort Study Using Propensity Score Matching.

Prior studies have found a reduced risk of dementia of any etiology following influenza vaccination in selected populations, including veterans and patients with serious chronic health conditions.

However, the effect of influenza vaccination on Alzheimer’s disease (AD) risk in a general cohort of older US adults has not been characterized.

To compare the risk of incident AD between patients with and without prior influenza vaccination in a large US claims database.

This study demonstrates that influenza vaccination is associated with reduced AD risk in a nationwide sample of US adults aged 65 and older

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