BCG vaccine linked to reduced Alzheimer’s risk
Researchers from Massachusetts General Hospital and Harvard have identified a potential biological link between the BCG vaccine and a reduced risk of Alzheimer's disease. The study suggests the vaccine alters immune cell behavior in the brain, offering new insights into the connection between the immune system and neurodegeneration.
Why it matters
This discovery could lead to novel preventative treatments for Alzheimer's by leveraging existing, widely available vaccines to modulate brain health.
The century-old Bacillus Calmette-Guérin (BCG) vaccine has been administered to billions of people around the world in an effort to erase tuberculosis, the dreaded and once-widespread bacterial lung disease.
Doctors have long noticed a possible connection between the jab and reduced risk of another dreaded disease: Alzheimer’s.
Now, according to researchers based at Massachusetts General Hospital and Harvard University in the United States, there is a “potential biological explanation” for what the team says were “previously observed associations”.
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