Can a zona vaccine reduce your risk of dementia?

If you have just read the headlines, you have probably seen studies suggesting that obtaining Shingrix or Zostavax vaccines not only protects against zonads, but could also offer some protection against Alzheimer / Dementiating Dementiating in the elderly. We also wondered so we decided to examine it, we did it too. How many people in your family are affected by Alzheimer’s disease?

Although it is too early to say it definitively, it has the potential to change the situation for millions of Americans, especially for black Americans who have the highest impact of Alzheimer’s and dementia in the United States, according to the Alzheimer’s foundation.

This year, several studies have been published on the ability to reduce the risks of dementia in the Journal of American Medical Association (JAMA). Additional research continues to see if vaccines stop or delay the development of dementia and for how long.

The two vaccines successfully protected themselves against the chickenpox virus and the rashes of the atrocious shingles that accompany it. However, none have been developed to prevent or specifically derment dementia.

What is shingles and why get vaccinated?

The source of the Zoster herpes virus which causes the zona is the same which causes chickenpox. Once a person gets chickenpox, generally child, the virus remains sleeping in the body for years. And although all those who have had chickenpox has been zona in recent years, the centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) claim that nearly a million people obtain the rashes of Painful Zona each year.

The zona is known for its symptoms, which include blisters and burns, itching eruptions that appear on one side of the body and face, headache, fatigue, high fevers and nausea. While blisters can take a month or more to heal, pain can last for months.

Linda Marcus, 67, of Detroit, says that she had a serious crime of Zona before she could be vaccinated. “It was horrible. The blisters were so bad that I had trouble wearing clothes,” said Marcus. “I kick myself to wait.” When her doctor told her that she could get shingles again, she was vaccinated and was so happy. “And now I see the news that it could protect me from Alzheimer’s disease, I am really grateful,” said Linda that she lost several family members because of dementia.

Primary care physicians recommend that people over 50 get the vaccine to protect themselves against the virus. The current recommendation of the CDC vaccine is Shingrix, a two -dose vaccine that has proven more effective in prevention than Zostavax, an older medication. Recent studies also show that Shingrix can improve potential advantages and risk reduction around dementia, while the two vaccines are promising.

One of the recent studies, from Stanford, published in the journal Jama. He found that patients who received Zostavax were less likely to be diagnosed with dementia over the next 7.4 years than those who were not. Pascal Geldsetzer, an epidemiologist from the University of Stanford and one of the study authors, said that “the study collected data on more than 18,400 people in the 1970s and 1980s”.

A significant change in the prevention of zona in this country is that the CDC now recommends the Shingrix vaccine for people aged 50 and over. Shingrix is ​​supposed to increase the preventive body immune response. Doctors recommend that their patients are now getting the new two -doses Shingrix, even if they had the single dose zostavax several years ago. Most health insurances, including Medicare, will pay the two -doses vaccine of shingrix.

And while most significant studies have been carried out on patients who have obtained Zostavax, another study suggests that Shingrix could have even stronger protective effects. Another recent study was carried out on 103,000 people in the United States. The results were published in 2024 in the journal Nature Medicine. According to the study, during the six years that followed vaccination, people who obtained shingrix shooting were 18% less likely to obtain a diagnosis of dementia than people who obtained Zostavax. The manufacturer of Shingrix, GSK, plans to carry out more studies to study the link between their risk of vaccine and dementia.

All published studies agree that they have not yet followed people long enough to determine how long the effects will last. While researchers continue to explore the short -term and long -term benefits of these vaccines in dementia prevention, health care providers who see patients say that they are the best tool we have to prevent shingles now.

So tell your doctor to make vaccination vaccinations as soon as possible your vaccinations.

Resources

Setupax

Shingrix

Alzheimer’s foundation.

Journal of the American Medical Association

Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC)

Jama newspaper

Nature medicine.