It’s coming up on flu shot season once again, and if their intended purpose wasn’t motivation enough, a Northern Virginia doctor says the vaccinations might do more than you realize.
A recent study of almost a million people found that those who had gotten flu shots for six consecutive years had a 40 percent lower risk of dementia.
That’s “pretty dramatic,” says Dr. Angela Hsu, an internist and geriatrician at Kaiser Permanente in Tysons, who adds that it’s “yet another piece of data that that shows how beneficial and how important it can be.”
Many people think the flu shot makes them sick, or that it doesn’t work, and while it’s true that some people get a reaction to the vaccination and it doesn’t provide iron-clad protection against infection for everyone, Hsu says “the benefits of the flu shot are misunderstood.”
“It’s not a force field. It doesn’t keep you from getting the flu or getting exposed to germs,” she says. “But if you do get the flu, hopefully you won’t be sick for as long, or you won’t have to end up in the hospital or die from the flu — that’s really the goal of the flu shot.” That’s especially true for older people.
And if you’re young and healthy, “having the flu shot means that you can decrease the spread of the flu,” Hsu says.
“If you get the flu, you’re not going to spread it to as many people, and some of those people you’re in contact with might be vulnerable and might have more serious risk and complications than you know.”
Doctors have been telling their patients this for years, Hsu says, but the dementia connection is another powerful piece of information for doctors and patients.
“Dementia basically means that you have cognitive decline that gets the point where you have trouble doing things and functioning,” Hsu says. “And that’s a combination of how much wear and tear your brain sees over the course of your life, and also how resilient your brain is to those changes.”
Infections contribute to that wear and tear, Hsu adds. “All those the viruses that you’re encountering over the course of your life do have some cumulative effect,” she says. Infections such as the flu, COVID-19, even dental infections, “cause inflammation in our bodies,” she adds.
“We know that there’s definitely a relationship between infections and dementia, infections and inflammation, infections and wear and tear to the brain,” Hsu says.
Each infection you can head off helps slow that process, Hsu says, “which is why I think the flu shot probably has such a significant impact.”
Her message: “Get your flu shot.” It’s recommended for anyone older than six months.
Feature image by Courtney Haas/peopleimages.com/stock.adobe.com
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