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Expert worried COVID vaccine won’t be enough to protect senior citizens
Dr. Nir Barzilia, the Director of the Institute for Aging Research at the Albert Einstein College of Medicine is concerned that when a COVID-19 vaccine does become available, it won't be effective enough to protect the elderly.
HOUSTON - An expert on aging is sounding an alarm for senior citizens, as companies race to develop a vaccine to fight COVID-19. Dr. Nir Barzilia is the author of “Age Later” and also the Director of the Institute for Aging Research at the Albert Einstein College of Medicine. He's concerned that when a COVID-19 vaccine does become available, it won't be effective enough to protect many senior citizens.
“In order to have immunity, you have to have an innate immunity and you have those cells that are called B cells, the lymphocytes and T cells and there is a decline in their ability to react to outside germs,” explains Dr. Barzilia. He explains how this affects all types of vaccines for seniors. “Most companies develop immunization that doesn't take into effect that those B cells and T cells are not going to respond to immunization and for the flu vaccine, only 40% of the elderly react for a second shot, so it's largely really not effective.
"It has terrible consequences because a lot of the elderly know that it's not effective, so they don't even get the vaccine, which could help steal a lot of them,” states Dr. Barzilia.
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He says seniors, who already take two different prescription drugs though, may actually have a better chance of a vaccine helping them. “One of them is called Metformin. It has been around for decades. It's very safe, it's generic, it's cheap, and it's for treating type 2 diabetes, but in fact, it's really an aging targeting drug, it's anti-aging. People on Metformin have less cardiovascular disease, Alzheimer's, and cancers of all kind, and people who have been taking Metformin with diabetes die less than people without diabetes, so it's a really good drug,” states Dr. Barzilia. He also says patients who were on Metformin in many countries had a higher rate of surviving COVID-19, so while it wasn't a clinical trial, he says it is evidence that it can help.
“There's another drug that is called Rapamycin. It's used after transplants, it's an immune modulator. In high dose, it's an immune suppressor, but at low dose, it's an immune enhancer, and there are studies that show that people who get Rapamycin before immunization have a decrease in 52% in severe disease.
Imagine if we could have an effect of 52% for a disease like that, it would be a very different story than what it is now,” says Dr. Barzilia. He’s urging experts to consider giving these drugs to seniors, before they're given a vaccine because he says studies show it could make it more effective. He says studies would need to take place to determine how far in advance they would need to be given though, whether it be weeks or months in advance. He says there won't be time to make this standard care for this pandemic, but he's studying it to help seniors, so they can more effectively get the benefit of future vaccines.
Meantime, Dr. Barzilia encourages all senior citizens to get up and moving, to help protect their health during the pandemic. There are things that you can do right now, if you're afraid of COVID. Okay, which really means exercise and diet, and it's very hard to do when you're locked down. But exercise can be simple for the elderly like go out and walk! You know you don't sleep well at night anyhow go out, and try to build up 10,000 steps, or do as much as possible,” says Dr. Barzilia. He knows that's not possible for everyone, but again, do as much as you can.
He also encourages good nutrition and says talk to your doctor to see if it's okay for you to eat only during eight hours of each day. “The advice that I give more often, is there's a special diet that's called intermittent fasting, or 16 hour fasting. It’s really about skipping breakfast, not eating for 16 hours before dinner and lunch.
It has a biological effect on aging, if you don't cheat,” states Dr. Barzilia. He says it can help people lose weight, which is a move in a positive direction, since obesity drives aging and is a risk factor for coronavirus. He believes adding this to exercise will make seniors more resilient and help them survive the disease, if they do contract it.
For more information, visit the Albert Einstein College of Medicine website.