The link between shingles vaccines and lowering the risk of dementia is being strengthened in new research.
A Stanford Medicine study published in the journal Nature on April 2nd found that the vaccine used to prevent shingles reduces the chances of a new dementia diagnosis by about 20% over the next seven years.
“If these findings are truly causal, the shingles vaccine is much more effective and cost-effective in preventing or delaying dementia than existing drug interventions,” the researchers said in the study.
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These findings also support new theories that viruses affecting the nervous system can increase the risk of dementia.
Pascal Geldsetzer, Pascal Geldsetzer, MD and PhD, assistant professor of medicine at Stanford University, said they consider these findings “very important” for clinical medicine, population health and research.
Researchers marked a link between shingles vaccines and reduced risk of dementia in multiple data sets. (istock)
“For the first time, there is likely evidence that there is a link between causal vaccination and dementia prevention,” he told Fox News Digital.
“We found these protective effects to be large in size. They are significantly larger than existing pharmacological tools for dementia.”
The randomized trials utilized a unique method of rolling out the shingles vaccine in Wales, England in 2013, Geldsetzer noted.
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“They said if you spent your 80th birthday just before the start date of the program, you are ineligible and you remain unsuitable for life,” he said. “If I had my 80th birthday right after that, I would have been eligible for at least a year.”
“Our data shows that there is a one-week difference between this birth date cutoff essentially means that no one has been vaccinated.
The study found that women benefited from the vaccine more than men in terms of lower risk of dementia. (istock)
According to Geldsetzer, the vaccine-friendly and ineligible groups are “good comparison groups” as the only difference that was born a few days ago or later.
The same protective effect of shingles vaccinations for dementia has been identified in various populations and countries that have deployed the vaccine in a similar manner, the researchers found.
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To gather more evidence and confirm the link, Geldsetzer recommends conducting clinical trials.
“I am currently trying to raise funds to carry out such trials from private foundations and charity,” he said.
“We want to test a vaccine that has produced an attractive set of evidence that has not been produced in the United States.”
Researchers say the protective effects of dementia shingles vaccinations have been identified in a variety of populations and countries. (istock)
Dr. Mark Loefman, a family doctor who was not involved in the study, was heavily linked to the shingles vaccine and the risk of dementia.
“Interesting headlines are common in studies that show the association between a particular health outcome and exposure to something within the environment, our diet or medication,” a Chicago doctor said in an interview with Fox News Digital.
“The challenge in interpreting this type of data is that the association never proves that exposure has caused health discoveries.”
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Loafman said the large population’s study was “very good work” to rule out the possibility that vaccinated and non-vaccinated groups share different attributes that could skew the outcome.
“So it appears that the vaccine actually offers a fairly important level of protection against the onset of dementia.”
These findings support a “new theory,” according to Stanford Medicine, that viruses affecting the nervous system can increase the risk of dementia. (istock)
“The study also includes compelling evidence that supports two very plausible mechanisms in which vaccines reduce the incidence of dementia,” he added.
This includes the fact that the herpes virus that causes chicken po and shingles can settle into the nervous system and then fire shingles later.
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“Secondly, vaccines born like the shingles vaccine are associated with neuroprotective properties,” Laufman continued. “The association is not causal in itself, but this study adds more credibility to the association.”
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Loafman, who has already received the shingles vaccine himself, said he would recommend it to patients in light of the study.
“These findings further encourage me to recommend it to eligible patients, friends and family,” he said.
