CHICAGO, IL -The Washington Post (12/2, Sima) reports that researchers earlier this year reported โthat the shingles vaccine cuts the risk of developing dementia by 20% over a seven-year period.โ
A large follow-upย studyย published Tuesday in Cell โfound that shingles vaccination may protect against risks at different stages of dementia โ including for people already diagnosed.โ The research โfound that cognitively healthy people who received the vaccine were less likely to develop mild cognitive impairment, an early symptomatic phase before dementia.โ The study suggests that the shingles vaccine โmay help people who already have dementia. Those who got the vaccine were almost 30% less likely to die of dementia over nine years, suggesting the vaccine may be slowing the progression of the neurodegenerative syndrome.โ
In addition to a lower risk of dementia, the shingles vaccine has also been linked to a lower risk of other conditions, including heart disease, blood clots, and stroke.
Highlights
Summary
Using natural experiments, we have previously reported that live-attenuated herpes zoster (HZ) vaccination appears to have prevented or delayed dementia diagnoses in both Wales and Australia. Here, we find that HZ vaccination also reduces mild cognitive impairment diagnoses and, among patients living with dementia, deaths due to dementia. Exploratory analyses suggest that the effects are not driven by a specific dementia type. Our approach takes advantage of the fact that individuals who had their eightieth birthday just after the start date of the HZ vaccination program in Wales were eligible for the vaccine for 1 year, whereas those who had their eightieth birthday just before were ineligible and remained ineligible for life. The key strength of our natural experiments is that these comparison groups should be similar in all characteristics except for a minute difference in age. Our findings suggest that live-attenuated HZ vaccination prevents or delays mild cognitive impairment and dementia and slows the disease course among those already living with dementia.
Media Release/AMA Morning Rounds
