THE GUARDIAN – Researchers have raised hopes for delaying dementia after finding that a recently approved shingles vaccine was linked to a substantial reduction in diagnoses of the condition in the six years after receiving the shot.
The discovery, based on US medical records, suggests that beyond the health benefits of preventing shingles, a painful and sometimes serious condition in elderly people, the vaccine may also delay the onset of dementia, the UK’s leading cause of death.
Dr Maxime Taquet at the University of Oxford, the first author on the study, said the results supported the idea that shingles vaccination may prevent dementia.
“If validated in clinical trials, these findings could have significant implications for older adults, health services, and public health.”
Shingles is caused by the herpes zoster virus and can flare up in people who have previously had chickenpox.
When a shingles vaccine, Zostavax, was first rolled out in 2006, a number of studies found hints that the risk of dementia seemed to be lower in those who got the shots …
Andrew Doig, a professor of biochemistry at the University of Manchester, said: “This is a significant result, comparable in effectiveness to the recent antibody drugs for Alzheimer’s disease. Administering the recombinant shingles vaccine could well be a simple and cheap way to lower the risk of Alzheimer’s disease.
“Now, we need to run a clinical trial of the [new] vaccine, comparing patients who receive the vaccine with those who get a placebo. This is the most reliable way to find out how well the vaccine works. We also need to see how many years the effect might last and whether we should vaccinate people at a younger age.
“We know that the path to Alzheimer’s disease can start decades before any symptoms are apparent, so the vaccine might be even more effective if given to people in their 40s or 50s” …
