2023-06-01 17:00:00
Vaccination against shingles appears to reduce the risk of dementia. This is the conclusion reached by a working group led by Markus Eyting from the Heidelberg Institute of Global Health based on data from unvaccinated people in Wales and those vaccinated with the live vaccine Zostavax. Like the team in a pre-release reported, people in a group with a vaccination rate of around 50 percent were one fifth less likely to develop dementia than an almost completely unvaccinated comparison group. The result supports the hypothesis that the chickenpox virus, which causes shingles, is involved in the development of dementia.
Dementia is a growing problem worldwide and to date there is no effective therapy for mental loss. For some time, however, there has been a suspicion that infectious diseases could be involved in some dementia diseases. Several Studies have provided evidence of thisthat herpesviruses, particularly HSV-1 and the chickenpox virus, are associated with a higher risk of dementia. These viruses infect nerve cells and in some cases can cause encephalitis. They also appear to damage the brain in subtle ways, contributing to Alzheimer’s and other neurodegenerative diseases.
Shingles is a late effect of chickenpox infection, in which the virus becomes active again and causes a painful rash. The Zostavax vaccine cuts the incidence of shingles by about half. In Wales, the vaccine is only offered to people born after September 2, 1933. This cut-off date allowed the working group to carry out its analysis. In the study, the team compared people who were born in the week before the deadline with those whose birthday falls in the week after. In the latter, the vaccination rate was 47 percent, in the former almost zero.
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