{"id":12062,"date":"2025-04-02T20:27:47","date_gmt":"2025-04-03T00:27:47","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/citystuff.com\/miami\/?p=12062"},"modified":"2025-04-02T20:27:47","modified_gmt":"2025-04-03T00:27:47","slug":"shingles-vaccine-may-protect-against-dementia","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/citystuff.com\/miami\/2025\/04\/02\/shingles-vaccine-may-protect-against-dementia\/","title":{"rendered":"Shingles vaccine may protect against dementia"},"content":{"rendered":"

Introduction to Shingles Vaccine and Dementia<\/h2>\n

Getting vaccinated against shingles \u2014 a painful and debilitating condition that can flare up years after infection from varicella zoster \u2014 not only lowers the risk of infection, but may also offer some protection against dementia, a provocative new study suggests.
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Research Findings<\/h2>\n

The new research, published Wednesday in Nature, analyzed data from more than 280,000 older adults in Wales and found that people who received the original shingles live virus vaccine were 20% less likely to develop dementia of any type than those who were not vaccinated. Previous research has found an association between the Shingrix shingles vaccine, which replaced the live virus version in 2020, and a lower risk of dementia, especially in women.<\/p>\n

Study Design and Methodology<\/h2>\n

The new study was possible because of an unusual public health policy in Wales that provided a \u201cnatural experiment\u201d to explore the potential impact of the vaccine on dementia risk. With the rollout of the vaccine in 2013 in Wales, shots were offered to people born on or after Sept. 2, 1933, but not those who were born before that date. That allowed the German and Stanford University researchers to compare two groups of people with similar health characteristics who differed only by one week in age, making them essentially the same except that the vaccine was available to the younger population but not the older, said Dr. Pascal Geldsetzer, an assistant professor of medicine at Stanford University and senior author of the study.<\/p>\n

Expert Insights<\/h2>\n

What\u2019s exciting about the study is that it\u2019s essentially like a randomized controlled trial, considered the gold standard in research, he said. The way the original vaccine was rolled out in Wales provided a unique opportunity, said Allison Aiello, a professor of epidemiology at the Columbia University Aging Center in New York City. \u201cIt\u2019s like having a control group compared to a treated group,\u201d said Aiello, who was not associated with the new research. \u201cWhat\u2019s interesting is the finding of 20% protection. That is a pretty strong effect, which does fit with other research suggesting that herpes viruses might have an influence on dementia.\u201d<\/p>\n

Understanding the Link Between Shingles and Dementia<\/h2>\n

Scientists don\u2019t know exactly how the chickenpox virus raises the risk of dementia. It\u2019s been shown that reactivation of the virus can lead to the accumulation of aberrant proteins associated with Alzheimer\u2019s, for example, Geldsetzer said. It\u2019s also possible that the virus might spark a reactivation of herpes simplex, which earlier research has linked to dementia. Herpes viruses never completely go away, but instead lurk in the body until the immune system weakens. Aging leads to a natural weakening of the immune system that can allow the virus to resurface as shingles, a nasty side effect of chickenpox.<\/p>\n

Shingles Vaccine and Age<\/h2>\n

The age effect is why the shingles vaccine has been offered only to people age 50 and older in the U.S. It’s given as two doses, two to six months apart. Herpes viruses, including oral and genital herpes simplex, appear to have the ability to get into the central nervous system, experts said. In fact, a 2024 study found that among 70-year-olds without dementia at the outset, older adults with a herpes simplex diagnosis were more than twice as likely as uninfected people to develop dementia over a 15-year follow-up.<\/p>\n

Additional Research and Findings<\/h2>\n

Bolstering the case for the shingles vaccine protecting against dementia were the findings from a study published in Nature Medicine in 2024 that analyzed medical records from more than 100,000 patients. That analysis suggested the newer shingles vaccine was associated with even better protection against dementia. In that study, researchers also investigated whether two other vaccines \u2014 for influenza and tetanus, diphtheria and pertussis \u2014 had any impact on the risk for dementia. They did not.<\/p>\n

Conclusion<\/h2>\n

The most important take-home message from the Stanford study is that getting vaccinated might lower the risk for dementia, said Dr. Aarati Didwania, a professor of medicine and medical education at Northwestern University\u2019s Feinberg School of Medicine in Chicago. Exactly how the vaccines might protect against dementia isn\u2019t clear, Didwania said. \u201cBut it\u2019s an intriguing question,\u201d she added. \u201cIs it by decreasing inflammation or preventing the virus from reactivating?\u201d There\u2019s certainly a good reason for getting vaccinated, Didwania said. \u201cShingles is a terrible, painful and debilitating condition that can lead to horrendous long-term pain,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n

FAQs<\/h2>\n