The shingles vaccine and dementia

As America ages, dementia is becoming a bigger and bigger healthcare burden. Medicare won’t pay for long-term nursing home care. Dementia will be a growing drag on the US economy at least until the baby boomer die off.

Shingles is caused by herpes virus, a neurotrophic virus. For many people who had chicken pox as a child, the virus hid out in their ganglia, emerging decades later as a painful rash. There’s a vaccine for shingles now that is protective for shingles.

It turns out that the shingles vaccine is also protective for dementia:

“Last year, a preprint study in Wales suggested that the live shingles vaccine may be associated with a 20% reduction in dementia risk, with the relationship stronger in women than men.

 

"Although previous studies have suggested immunization against herpes viruses might protect against dementia, particularly in women, this took advantage of a change in vaccine type to overcome the many confounding variables that may have provided alternative explanations," noted Robert Howard, MD, of University College London, who wasn't involved with the new Oxford study.”

But the live shingles vaccine is no longer available in the US. What about the current recombinant shingles vaccine?

“Associations between recombinant shingles vaccination and [reduced risk of] dementia were consistent across dementia types except frontotemporal and Lewy body dementia. Older adults vaccinated after October 2017 also were less likely to have a herpes zoster infection post-vaccination.

“The study was observational and cannot show causality, the researchers acknowledged. It relied on electronic health records, which may have had errors. Being diagnosis-free does not mean participants were disease-free, they pointed out.

“Nonetheless, the findings are "intriguing and encouraging," said co-author Paul Harrison, FRCPsych, also of the University of Oxford. "Anything that might reduce the risk of dementia is to be welcomed, given the large and increasing number of people affected by it."

https://www.medpagetoday.com/neurology/dementia/111252?xid=nl_mpt_morningbreak2024-07-26&mh=eb71348a5ff6ae370cc6759bc5dc3300&utm_source=Sailthru&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=MorningBreak_072624&utm_term=NL_Gen_Int_Daily_News_Update_active