Ask elderly readers of this blog about their BCG vaccine and they will recall an age of 45rpm records, Ben Sherman shirts and George Harrison‘s Concert for Bangladesh. But they still bear tiny marks, high on their left arms from they day they lined up outside the school dispensary. Ostensibly, the vaccination was against TB. But it may have been doing something else which concerns them very much here and now. It may actually have been protecting them against dementia. Get this from an excellent article by Amy Fleming of The Guardian:
…...BCG vaccine was originally used against tuberculosis, but it is also often part of a treatment programme for bladder cancer. “It stimulates the immune system,” says Lathe. A team of researchers in Jerusalem, he says, decided to look at patients who survived bladder cancer and compare dementia prevalence among patients treated with BCG and those who weren’t. “Do they differ in the rate at which they get Alzheimer’s disease?” The answer is yes – the BCG group appeared to get 75% protection against Alzheimer’s. A number of studies have now found varying levels of protection from BCG, with an average, according to one meta‑analysis, of 45%. [1]
And that is only the tip pf the iceberg, gentle readers. For what Amy’s article is really all about is a set of discoveries that the brain’s privileged position as a microbe-free zone is now under serious challenge. It was a position suspected by no less a scientist than the great Alzheimer himself. But was then rather complacently dismissed for many following years. It’s a theme which we’ve alluded to here before (LSS 14 9 24) following leads by the excellent team at the New Scientist. If so, we could at least be on the verge of real cures for all kinds of mental disturbances. And when we think of the terrible suffering such illnesses inflict both on the immediate victim, and their families and carers, we see that as a step forward indeed.
The patient careful thought of researchers and scientists offers the only real hope of ameliorating the human condition. How sad to live in an age when it is eclipsed by the passionate emotion of savage, ignorant mobs. That’s a theme we shall return to, as well.
#bcg #vaccines #dementia #alzheimer #immune system #brain #microbiology ]#new scientist
Learning, Science and Society 