A recent study reveals that pneumonia, influenza, and shingles may raise the risk of neurological illnesses including dementia and Parkinson’s.
For the study, which was published in the journal Neuron, researchers examined the medical records of over 450 thousand adults from Finland and the United Kingdom.
Can Vaccine Against Viruses Help Cure Dementia?
They looked for links between a wide variety of viral infections and six prevalent neurological diseases: Alzheimer’s disease, amyotrophic lateral sclerosis (ALS, often known as Lou Gehrig’s disease), dementia induced by stroke, other types of dementia, Parkinson’s disease, and multiple sclerosis (MS).
In total, investigators discovered 22 distinct associations between certain viral infections and various neurodegenerative disorders. Hospitalization-Required Viral Infections Raise the Risk of Later Neurodegenerative Disorders Most infectious diseases were associated with dementia.
People who had viral encephalitis (an infection of the brain), viral warts, influenza, pneumonia, or a combined illness of influenza and pneumonia were likely to acquire it. It increased the likelihood of receiving an Alzheimer’s diagnosis by at least 20 times. The greatest number of hazards were connected to cases of severe influenza.
With the exception of multiple sclerosis, influenza, and pneumonia infections were related to every neurodegenerative condition investigated.
Keep in mind that the individuals we evaluated did not have a cold, stated Michael Nalls, Ph.D., senior study author at the Center for Alzheimer’s and Related Dementias at the National Institutes of Health (NIH) in Bethesda, Maryland. Their infections rendered them so ill that they required hospitalization.
Vaccines can prevent hospitalization and severe illness from common viral infections. Nalls stated that vaccines that are widely available have the potential to minimize the risk of contracting or being hospitalized with many of the viral infections related to the risk of neurological illness in the study.
Vaccines available in the United States can prevent infection with influenza and pneumonia-causing viruses, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. Meningitis and chickenpox are two more infections linked to an elevated risk of neurodegenerative diseases in the study that can be prevented with common immunizations.
The fact that frequently used vaccines lessen the risk or severity of many of the viral infections reported in this study offers the prospect that neurodegenerative disorder risks could similarly be minimized, Nalls added.
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Study: Flu Vaccine Helps Reduce Risk Of Acquiring Alzheimer’s Disease
A possible preventable risk factor for degenerative brain disorders is a viral infection. While the purpose of the study was not to prove whether or how viral infections directly cause neurodegenerative illnesses, the majority of viruses involved in these diseases have the ability to infiltrate brain cells, according to the study.
The authors of the study speculate that once these viral infections infiltrate the brain, they trigger inflammation that contributes to the development of neurodegenerative disorders. These disorders cause damage to the brain and nervous system and can result in a variety of difficulties with brain-controlled processes such as thought, speech, and movement.
Numerous earlier research, some dating back decades, have established a connection between some viruses and prevalent brain illnesses. One 1990s study, for instance, investigated autopsy brain tissue and connected the herpes simplex virus to an increased risk of Alzheimer’s disease.
The Epstein-Barr virus was linked to an increased incidence of multiple sclerosis in a study of patient medical records and blood samples conducted in 2012.
A second analysis of health insurance claims linked the flu vaccine to a reduced risk of Alzheimer’s disease. Neurodegenerative illnesses are a group of diseases for which there are very few effective treatments and several risk factors, said Andrew Singleton, Ph.D., head of the NIH’s Center for Alzheimer’s and Related Dementias.
Our findings support the notion that viral infections and associated nervous system inflammation may be widespread and potentially preventable risk factors for these illnesses.
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