Could a simple calculation be then that a vaccination is preferred if the vaccine that is taken will prevent at least (1) infection within the immune period? If the efficacy is 50% for example, then it would be (2) infections. Since the pathogen is worse than the vaccine, maybe 40% for a young person it could be 0.6 and 1.2 infections instead, maybe. It depends how solid the Alzheimer’s data is for example as well. What would your numbers be?
How do you stand with regards to Valaciclovir, an antiviral, taken as a prophylactic to prevent infection from the herpesvirus family (Shingles - Alzheimers, EBV - Multiple sclerosis, etc)?
Toll-like receptor 4 and CD11b expressed on microglia coordinate eradication of Candida albicans cerebral mycosis
Microbes, including fungi, routinely infect the brain, but specific immune pathways are undefined. Wu et al. show that Candida albicans activates microglia through two mechanisms involving the production of amyloid b-like peptides that signal through TLR4 and candidalysin that activates CD11b, together promoting clearance of albicans from the brain
Michael Lustgarten has a video on Rapamycin and Candida that shows huge effect on Rapamycin and Candida infections in the brain, basically if you use Rapamycin you will have very little Candida growth and almost none in the blood stream witch equals much lower incidences of Alzheimers. Coincidence, I don’t think so.
I don’t have it, I cam across it on youtube a couple of months ago. But it is not like his typical videos, it’s a stand out. I will try to find it later today.
Won’t an aspect like the reduced risk of Alzheimer from some vaccines, if this is causal, be likely to more then offset the effect of reduced immunological space?
“We then show that receiving the herpes zoster vaccine reduced the probability of a new dementia diagnosis over a follow-up period of seven years by 3.5 percentage points (95% CI: 0.6 – 7.1, p=0.019), corresponding to a 19.9% relative reduction in the occurrence of dementia.”
Besides probably causing a reduction in Alzheimer, the vaccinations guard against the diseases they are meant for. Can’t the combined effect be likely to yield a net benefit to most people?
Any opinion on taking an antiviral as well?
Because I have an APOE4 allele, about 3 x causal increase in risk for Alzheimer’s - it is very worth it to me with vaccines.
Antivirals could be of benefit and they would not cause a reduction in immunological space. They might have some other side effects though. I can’t say I have looked into them much at all so I can’t give a good opinion on them.
The BCG (Bacillus Calmette-Guérin) vaccine was developed against Tuberculosis over 100 years ago, but it is known to protect against other infectious diseases as well. A Phase III randomized clinical trial from Harvard shows that multiple doses of theBCG vaccine protected adults with Type I diabetes from COVID infections better than the initial mRNA COVID vaccines. It also protected this group against other infectious diseases. The BCG vaccine worked against COVID variants Delta and Omicron in this study.
Some professions like nursery workers and healthcare care workers are exposed to far more infectious pathogens in the course of their careers than the average person let alone more solitary professions like crop farming. I would have thought this would place a far greater burden on finite immunological memory than a few optional vaccines.
Is there any evidence that these people have weaker immune systems as a result?
It’s not necessarily going to put a far greater burden on immunological space than vaccines. Vaccines are designed to create a response resulting in a strong immunity, which will take up a decent amount of immunological space. But it’s hard to compare these things. I can’t say whether getting lots of vaccines matters more or less than getting lots of infections over a lifetime. I haven’t looked into that, and the studies I read on immunological space did not talk about that.
I’m not aware of direct evidence that people exposed to more pathogens have weaker immune systems or less immunological space at older ages, but I can’t say I have looked at the literature on this in any detail. It would be interesting to see studies on immunological space in people with very different life histories when it comes to infection exposure.
