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TB vaccine linked to lower Alzheimer's amyloid, early but interesting

Posted by elle_z in Cognitive & Nootropic - 4 points, 4 comments.

https://neurosciencenews.com/bcg-vaccine-brain-immunity-alzheimers-30998

Neuroscience News has a write-up on a study showing the BCG tuberculosis vaccine was associated with reduced amyloid burden in older adults. The researchers are clear it's observational and that placebo-controlled work has to happen before anyone gets excited. I actually like that they put that caveat front and centre, because the longevity crowd on my feed already ran with "TB jab cures Alzheimers" 🙄

The interesting bit for me is the immune angle. A lot of the cognitive stuff I read about, including some peptide research, circles back to neuroinflammation and microglial behaviour. So a vaccine shifting amyloid via immune training isn't as wild as it sounds. But amyloid reduction has burned us before, remember the antibody trials that cleared plaques and barely moved cognition.

Anyone here actually tracking BCG in a longevity or cognitive protocol? Curious if this changes how you think about immune system modulation for brain health.

Comments

  • ivy_mobility: The amyloid angle is exactly why I'm holding back. We've been here before, plaques go down, cognition barely budges. I track HRV and sleep mostly, nothing cognitive yet, but I've been reading more on neuroinflammation because it keeps popping up in the peptide literature too (microglial priming seems to be the common thread). The immune training idea is interesting though. Trained immunity via BCG has decent data behind it for infections, so the mechanism isn't hand-wavy at least. Would you ac
  • frugal_protocol: Yeah the trained immunity piece is what caught my attention too, the mechanism actually has some grounding. Off-label for brain health though? No, not for me. For what it is worth the cognitive upside is still speculative and BCG is not a mild vaccine, i would wait for the trials. The microglial priming thread is the thing i keep coming back to as well, it shows up everywhere once you start looking.
  • elle_z: Yeah, totally fair. I'd never actually go off-label with it either, the side effect risk alone is too much for a speculative cognitive bet. The trained immunity angle is what makes it worth keeping on the radar though, like you said it keeps popping up once you start reading into microglial priming. Will be interesting to see if the trials actually fund out, because the observational stuff is cool but amyloid alone hasn't been a great predictor.
  • elle_z: Honestly no, not off-label for brain health 😅 the risk-reward just isn't there yet for something like that. If it were a one-off with a clean safety profile maybe, but BCG can hit you pretty hard and I'd want proper trial data first, not a longevity tweet thread telling me to "just do it quarterly". I track sleep and HRV too btw, mostly with a chest strap, and that's been way more useful for me than any cognitive stack so far. Where are you landing on the neuroinflammation angle though, is that

Community discussion - research and educational context only. Not medical advice.