In a surprise finding, researchers have found that getting at least one flu shot makes it 40 percent less likely for people over the age of 65 to be diagnosed with Alzheimer’s disease, up to four years later.
While it’s still far too early to determine if there are any direct causal links between the common vaccine and neurological health outcomes like Alzheimer’s — in other words, we don’t know if it’s the flu vaccine itself or something else responsible for the results — the research is certainly an eyebrow-raising new development that could, potentially, point in the direction of easily accessible treatments.
In a peer-reviewed study in the Journal of Alzheimer’s Disease, researchers at UTHealth Houston compared the incidence rate of the disease in patients with and without at least one flu vaccination in a nationwide sample of US adults aged 65 and up, which included 935,887 vaccinated and 935,887 non-vaccinated individuals.
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