Hopes that a treatment for Parkinson’s is on the horizon have risen after research suggested that tetanus injections protect against the incurable disease.
People recently vaccinated against tetanus after a wound infection have been found to be half as likely to be diagnosed with this condition.
Scientists suspect that the tetanus bacteria is responsible for attacking the nervous system of Parkinson’s patients.
Around 153,000 people in the UK suffer from Parkinson’s, a neurodegenerative disease that causes pain, tremors in the limbs and difficulty moving. Two more people are diagnosed every hour and the disease costs the NHS more than £725 million a year.
Former Newsnight presenter and University Challenge quizmaster Jeremy Paxman, who has Parkinson’s, has said it “makes you wish you had never been born”.
Hopes that a treatment for Parkinson’s is on the horizon have risen after research suggested that tetanus injections protect against the incurable disease (file photo)
Former Newsnight presenter and University Challenge quizmaster Jeremy Paxman, who has Parkinson’s, has said it “makes you wish you had never been born”.
The new findings suggest that widely available tetanus vaccines could prevent or treat Parkinson’s, which typically affects older people and is caused by the death of a subset of brain cells that control movement.
It is unknown how tetanus bacteria attack these cells, but researchers speculate that they may access the brain through nerve cells in the nose.
Researchers analyzed records from a major healthcare provider in Israel to see whether any type of vaccine given in adulthood increased or decreased the risk of Parkinson’s.
They looked at 1,500 people who had been diagnosed between the ages of 45 and 75 and compared them with a control group (five times larger) of people who did not have the disease, selected for having similar characteristics to those who had the disease.
They found that 1.6 percent of people with Parkinson’s had received the tetanus vaccine before their diagnosis, compared with 3.2 percent of those who had not.
The protective effect was also greater in people who had received the vaccine more recently, and no one developed Parkinson’s within two years of vaccination.
People recently vaccinated against tetanus after a wound infection have been found to be half as likely to be diagnosed with the condition (file photo)
Dr Ariel Israel of Tel Aviv University told New Scientist magazine: “The closer the vaccine date gets, the less likely Parkinson’s disease will be diagnosed.”
Adults receive the tetanus vaccine if they have a wound contaminated with dirt, feces, or saliva, because the bacteria that causes tetanus, Clostridium tetani, can be found there.
Claire Bale, associate director of research at the charity Parkinson’s UK, says the findings raise “the exciting possibility that tetanus vaccines may offer protection against the development of Parkinson’s and may even slow the progression of the disease.”
“As this is something that current treatments cannot do, it would be hugely significant if it became a reality.”
