Get the shingles jab, peeps!

Folks who had chicken pox as a child are at risk for shingles. In its extreme manifestation, shingles patients suffer pain to the point of suicidal ideation.

The good news is that there’s a vaccine for that. And it not only prevents shingles.

“Having shingles boosted the risk of major adverse cardiovascular events (MACE) such as vascular dementia, heart attack, stroke, and death by roughly a quarter -- but people who received the recombinant shingles vaccine before developing shingles saw their risks of those outcomes drop by up to half, according to a large retrospective study.

 

“Among more than 174,000 people, ages 50 or older, those who developed a herpes zoster infection were approximately 20% more likely to have a heart attack, 27% more likely to have a stroke, and up to 30% more likely to die than people who didn't develop shingles, reported Ali Dehghani, DO, of Case Western Reserve University in Cleveland.

"Zoster infection has been viewed as just a simple rash that affects older adults," Dehghani explained in a news briefing before the IDWeek annual meeting. "But people who developed shingles were found to have higher rates of heart attack, stroke, blood clots, and dementia, especially vascular dementia, and death over the following 5 years."

 

“Shingles vaccination flipped the risks. Vaccinated adults (ages ≥50) who later developed a first-time case of shingles had a 25% lower risk of heart attacks and strokes, a 27% lower risk of blood clots, a 50% lower risk of vascular dementia, and a 21% lower risk of death during a period of 1.5-3.5 years after their first vaccine dose.”

 

No downsides. Lots of upsides. Get the jab.

https://www.medpagetoday.com/meetingcoverage/idweek/118018?xid=nl_mpt_DHE_2025-10-19&mh=eb71348a5ff6ae370cc6759bc5dc3300&zdee=gAAAAABm4u1YoCP4y5SBTJUyUyqo9KxZhft26L1xeGdP0BzzQQN1Pb_ifR6vFqhFh-3U6Q_nU7DbA-EawzzXKxSRhMOwjrOGuOKbf7OE641eN0HfnK6eObE%3D&utm_source=Sailthru&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=Daily%20Headlines%20Evening%20-%20Randomized%202025-10-19&utm_term=NL_Daily_DHE_dual-gmail-definition

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