2023-06-03 15:26:50
Herpesviruses have long been suspected of being associated with dementia. New findings on vaccination against shingles reinforce this assumption.
In Deutschland According to estimates, around 1.8 million people live with it dementia. Most of them are affected by the Alzheimer’s subtype. However, the cause of dementia is still not fully understood.
Recently, several studies have examined the role of viruses and bacteria in the development of dementia. The preliminary version (English: Preprint) of a new study from the USA has now researched the connection between shingles vaccination and dementia – with a clear result.
Info
The new study is a so-called preprint study. This means it has not yet been reviewed by peers. A study can only be published after this “peer review” and the revision of the noted criticism.
What is shingles?
Shingles (herpes zoster) is a painful rash that usually develops on one side of the body or face. It has the same cause as chickenpox: Behind both diseases is the varicella-zoster virus, also known as human herpes virus type 3 (HHV-3). The shingles belongs to the herpes diseases.
As a viral infection, shingles or chickenpox could increase the risk of developing a neurodegenerative disease such as dementia. This is the result of another study from the USA. The researchers therefore assumed that the prevention of shingles could have a positive effect on the risk of dementia.
Prevention of shingles: Vaccination is recommended
Shingles affects about two out of ten people who have had chickenpox before in their lifetime. The risk of shingles also increases with age because the immune system weakens over the years.
Most people get sick over the age of 50. The Standing Vaccination Commission (Stiko) therefore advises people over the age of 60 and people over the age of 50 whose health risk is increased to have a shingles vaccination.
Shingles vaccination under 50 years
Younger people are also getting shingles more and more frequently, either because of stress or as a result of a serious infectious disease. Therefore, many experts generally recommend vaccination from the age of 50, especially if the immune system is weakened. These include people with HIV infection, rheumatoid arthritis, systemic lupus erythematosus, inflammatory bowel disease, chronic obstructive pulmonary disease or bronchial asthma, chronic renal failure, and diabetes mellitus.
Older people in Wales are also eligible for the shingles vaccine – but only if they were born after September 2, 1933. People born before this date are not eligible for vaccination.
The authors of the current study took advantage of this fact. The upside is: apart from the vaccination, there were no relevant differences between people born shortly before September 2, 1933 and those born shortly after. This made the Welsh a suitable study population to examine the effect of vaccination on the risk of dementia.
Shingles vaccination can reduce the risk of dementia
The researchers at Stanford University and the universities Heidelberg, Mainz and Vienna evaluated the nationwide data on vaccinations, doctor visits and death certificates for their study. After deducting the people who already have dementia, this resulted in a number of test subjects of over 282,000 people.
The team then compared people born in the week before the deadline to those born in the week after. In the latter, the vaccination rate was around 47 percent, in the former hardly anyone was vaccinated.
The result of the study: A shingles vaccination reduced the probability of a dementia diagnosis in the following seven years by 19.9 percent. Another interesting discovery was that the protective effect of the vaccine was significantly stronger in women than in men.
“Our results strongly suggest that the varicella-zoster virus plays an important role in the development of dementia,” the researchers conclude. However, further research into the background of this connection is needed.
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