{"id":25170,"date":"2025-04-02T15:15:58","date_gmt":"2025-04-02T15:15:58","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/medexperts.pro\/?p=25170"},"modified":"2025-04-02T15:25:18","modified_gmt":"2025-04-02T15:25:18","slug":"shingles-vaccine-can-decrease-risk-of-dementia-study-finds","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/medexperts.pro\/?p=25170","title":{"rendered":"Shingles Vaccine Can Decrease Risk of Dementia, Study Finds"},"content":{"rendered":"
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A growing body of research suggests that preventing the viral infection can help stave off cognitive decline.<\/p>\n

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Getting vaccinated against shingles can reduce the risk of developing dementia, a large new study<\/a> finds.<\/p>\n

The results provide some of the strongest evidence yet that some viral infections can have effects on brain function years later and that preventing them can help stave off cognitive decline.<\/p>\n

The study, published on Wednesday in the journal Nature, found that people who received the shingles vaccine were 20 percent less likely to develop dementia in the seven years afterward than those who were not vaccinated.<\/p>\n

\u201cIf you\u2019re reducing the risk of dementia by 20 percent, that\u2019s quite important in a public health context, given that we don\u2019t really have much else at the moment that slows down the onset of dementia,\u201d said Dr. Paul Harrison, a professor of psychiatry at Oxford. Dr. Harrison was not involved in the new study, but has done other research<\/a> indicating that shingles vaccines lower dementia risk.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n

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Whether the protection can last beyond seven years can only be determined with further research. But with few currently effective treatments or preventions, Dr. Harrison said, shingles vaccines appear to have \u201csome of the strongest potential protective effects against dementia that we know of that are potentially usable in practice.\u201d<\/p>\n

Shingles cases stem from the virus that causes childhood chickenpox, varicella-zoster, which typically remains dormant in nerve cells for decades. As people age and their immune systems weaken, the virus can reactivate and cause shingles, with symptoms like burning, tingling, painful blisters and numbness. The nerve pain can become chronic and disabling.<\/p>\n

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A growing body of research suggests that preventing the viral infection can help stave off cognitive decline.Getting vaccinated against shingles can reduce the risk of developing dementia, a large new study finds.The results provide some of the strongest evidence yet that some viral infections can have effects on brain function years later and that preventing them can help stave off cognitive decline.The study, published on Wednesday in the journal Nature, found that people who received the shingles vaccine were 20 percent less likely to develop dementia in the seven years afterward than those who were not vaccinated.\u201cIf you\u2019re reducing the risk of dementia by 20 percent, that\u2019s quite important in a public health context, given that we don\u2019t really have much else at the moment that slows down the onset of dementia,\u201d said Dr. Paul Harrison, a professor of psychiatry at Oxford. Dr. Harrison was not involved in the new study, but has done other research indicating that shingles vaccines lower dementia risk.Whether the protection can last beyond seven years can only be determined with further research. But with few currently effective treatments or preventions, Dr. Harrison said, shingles vaccines appear to have \u201csome of the strongest potential protective effects against dementia that we know of that are potentially usable in practice.\u201dShingles cases stem from the virus that causes childhood chickenpox, varicella-zoster, which typically remains dormant in nerve cells for decades. As people age and their immune systems weaken, the virus can reactivate and cause shingles, with symptoms like burning, tingling, painful blisters and numbness. The nerve pain can become chronic and disabling.We are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and\u00a0log into\u00a0your Times account, or\u00a0subscribe\u00a0for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber?\u00a0Log in.Want all of The Times?\u00a0Subscribe.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":25172,"comment_status":"close","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[4],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-25170","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-lifestyle"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/medexperts.pro\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/25170","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/medexperts.pro\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/medexperts.pro\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/medexperts.pro\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/medexperts.pro\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=25170"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/medexperts.pro\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/25170\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":25173,"href":"https:\/\/medexperts.pro\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/25170\/revisions\/25173"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/medexperts.pro\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/25172"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/medexperts.pro\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=25170"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/medexperts.pro\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=25170"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/medexperts.pro\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=25170"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}