- This topic has 3 replies, 3 voices, and was last updated 1 week, 3 days ago by
.
-
Posts
-
All,
Here is an interesting health story that caught my attention, particularly because it involves a vaccine many of us either have already received or are old enough to be thinking about.
A new study has found an association between the Shingrix shingles vaccine and a substantially lower risk of being diagnosed with dementia.
Researchers led by Brown University examined Medicare claims and health records from more than 509,000 Americans age 66 and older who had been admitted to skilled nursing facilities. Over the following four years, those who received at least one dose of Shingrix had a 24% lower relative risk of a dementia diagnosis than those who did not receive the vaccine.
Put another way, dementia was diagnosed in about 18.8% of the vaccinated group versus 24.6% of the unvaccinated group. That is roughly a six-percentage-point difference, which is significant enough to warrant attention.
There is an important qualifier: this was an observational study, not a randomized clinical trial. It therefore shows an association and does not prove that the shingles vaccine itself prevents dementia. People who get vaccinated may differ from people who do not in other ways that affect their health.
Still, what makes this particularly interesting is that this is not the first study to find such a relationship. Researchers have been seeing similar signals in other studies of shingles vaccination. One theory is that preventing reactivation of the varicella-zoster virus may reduce inflammation or other processes that contribute to neurological damage, although exactly what is happening remains unsettled.
Shingrix is already recommended primarily because shingles itself can be miserable and can result in long-lasting nerve pain. If future research confirms that vaccination also provides some protection against dementia, that would be a rather remarkable additional benefit.
Fox News: Common vaccine linked to 24% lower dementia risk in older adults
Brown University: Study suggests shingles vaccine may lower dementia risk
Interesting research and certainly something worth watching as additional studies are done.
73
Phillip Beall (W5EBC)Danial,
If you have the time and patience to read 882 pages of a book written by someone that gets paid by the word then you have a lot more time than me. (I still go to work for a living).
Is there a one word sentence that sums up her book? Or maybe one paragraph?
Please let us know how you really feel about it without torturing us.
- You must be logged in to reply to this topic.