• Herpes zoster vaccination reduced dementia diagnosis in our prior natural experiments
• Here, we find a lower occurrence of MCI and dementia deaths among dementia patients
• Herpes zoster vaccination appears to act along the entire clinical course of dementia
• This study’s approach avoids the common confounding concerns of observational data
Summary
Using natural experiments, we have previously reported that live-attenuated herpes zoster (HZ) vaccination appears to have prevented or delayed dementia diagnoses in both Wales and Australia. Here, we find that HZ vaccination also reduces mild cognitive impairment diagnoses and, among patients living with dementia, deaths due to dementia. Exploratory analyses suggest that the effects are not driven by a specific dementia type. Our approach takes advantage of the fact that individuals who had their eightieth birthday just after the start date of the HZ vaccination program in Wales were eligible for the vaccine for 1 year, whereas those who had their eightieth birthday just before were ineligible and remained ineligible for life. The key strength of our natural experiments is that these comparison groups should be similar in all characteristics except for a minute difference in age. Our findings suggest that live-attenuated HZ vaccination prevents or delays mild cognitive impairment and dementia and slows the disease course among those already living with dementia.
/snip to the conclusions
In conclusion, this study suggests that HZ vaccination slows or prevents disease progression across the entire disease course (as far as it can be feasibly ascertained from electronic health record data) of dementia. By taking advantage of the fact that the UK’s National Health Service assigned individuals who differed in their age by just a few weeks to being eligible or ineligible for HZ vaccination based on their date of birth, we were able to generate evidence that is more likely to be causal than those from more standard epidemiological analyses. Our finding that HZ vaccination had a beneficial effect on two different dementia-related outcomes in two different patient samples—and at two opposing ends of the disease course of dementia—thus provides promising evidence that HZ vaccination may prevent or slow the dementia disease process in a substantial proportion of individuals.
Good news for me. After 1poormom succumbed to dementia, I now have a family history. I also got the shingrix vaccine right before COVID hit.
Seriously…get every vaccine you can get. Don’t believe the conspiracy people. Get COVID boosters, RSV, flu, shingrix, and keep up to date on your tetanus.
I have written this before, so skip ahead if bored.
I am extremely unusual regarding singles — herpes zoster. I have had shingles outbreaks since early childhood, and shingles has been an extremely unusual crucial structure in my immune system and my body/mind overall (grandmas both came to sit with me during my earliest attacks to teach me their very different forms of late-puritanical, swedenborgian, Yoganandic prayer/mediation to control and get beyond the pain). The outbreaks almost certainly provoked my immune system to be hypersensitive and active against some other infections, including flus, Hep A, B, and C, meningitis and, most crucially for me, HIV. I lived with no treatment longer than any other survivor on record, largely due to what my doctors came to call my extremely unbalanced immune system.
But the costs have been high, especially as I age and lose the enormous power of youthful vigor and defiance. For the past 6 months I have been mostly bedridden. Most days I do not allow myself the joys of my small (2 miles or so) favorite easy walk in my Mexican paradise because being only slightly physically tired often throws me back into bed for a few days. I am embarked on a cautious program to train my immune system to turn its powerful fury away from colds and the like to focus on the zoster. We shall see.
My father just turned 90 and got his knee replaced last month. The surgery triggered shingles. He said that the shingles was much worse than he recovery from the surgery. I’ve been meaning to get the vaccine for several years but always put it off. I’m getting it ASAP.
PS - My son is an immunologist, get any vaccine that is applicable to your situation.
In the OP study the dementia benefits pertain to the live-attenuated HZ vaccine (Zostavax, Merck) only, because the newer recombinant HZ vaccine (Shingrix, GSK) was introduced into the UK’s National Health Service after our follow-up period ended.
Newer studies on the Shingrix have not been performed. However, the following paper does presents a records study that shows Shingrix does have dementia protection:
Here we used electronic health records (EHRs) and leveraged a natural experiment opportunity in the United States, created by the rapid uptake of the recombinant vaccine and the concurrent disuse of the live vaccine after October 2017 (Fig. 1a). By comparing the incidence of dementia in those who received a shingles vaccine just after versus just before this step change, we could accurately estimate the association between exposure to the recombinant vaccine and subsequent incidence of dementia diagnosis. We used propensity-score matching to further control for drifts in the characteristics of the vaccinated population.
I’m sorry to hear this. I hope that this turns out to be a temporary problem and that you recover soon.
If you haven’t already, I suggest that you have a thorough blood test including Vitamin B12 level. About 1/3 of people over age 55 gradually lose their ability to absorb Vitamin B12 from food. The deficiency can cause exhaustion but is easily remedied with supplements or shots. This is only the most obvious of problems that can be picked up with a blood test.
I recently learned that people with Parkinson’s Disease (like me) have a deficiency of Vitamin B3 (niacin). I immediately started taking 100 mg per day of Vitamin B3 on top of my usual multivitamin. Cheap and easy! Within a week I felt much more energetic.
Because I know so many people who suffered from shingles I got the live-attenuated HZ vaccine (Zostavax, Merck) as soon as I turned 60. Then I also got the newer recombinant HZ vaccine (Shingrix, GSK) because it was said to be more effective than Zostavax. I paid out of pocket for the Shingrix ($400 for two shots).
I wonder how many double-vaccinated fanatics are in their data set.
Plus, I had an MMR booster when my daughter was contemplating starting a family (not so much for the measles and mumps , of course….important as they are) AND the TDaP vaccine shortly after we moved here to Colorado at the end of September 2016 and I learned that there were frequent outbreaks of Whooping Cough in Boulder and surrounding neighbourhoods (less than 20 miles away)
That’s about where we are, way back paid out of pocket for the shot after both of us getting mild hits, and just now begat the 2 shot sequence, next one in February… But now it was fully covered, CVSCaremark, Medicare, not sure, but our local Safeway came through after all.. We had been asking, and were quoted near $300 per shot, so held off, but then found it in our plan after all, were ready to argue, no problem, went right through… So what remains of my WeCo/Lucent, now Nokia Medical seems to have come through… All up to date…
So naturally, the last couple days, I got hit with maybe a norovirus, clearing out both ways until today… DW has a bad head cold, up coughing all night… So far we haven’t cross pollinated…
Hey everybody. I am good friends with shingles as I have had it forever and without it I almost certainly would have died of hepatitis and/or AIDS long ago. It sucks being exhausted, but this goes in cycles. The virus has had a good run many times in the past, but each time my immune system finally gets it figured out and successfully suppresses it.
Now I am back to half mile walks and some gardening….
On a tangential topic, I recently read that Mexico is considered “level 2” hazardous for travel. Some areas are “don’t go there” (like Sinaloa, including Mazatlan, and the Acapulco area). Are you experiencing problems around your hacienda?
However, husband and I travel around a lot, and we see and hear what many gringos do not see and hear. Being fluent in Spanish is a big help, but even more useful is that we are both BIG CITY boys from hard times in urban America, and we have that very useful urban sense that can look down a block and think “I don’t think I want to walk there right now.” And we drive crappy looking cars and are ready (like our Mexican friends) to drive very, even murderously, fast when thinks look not right on some part of the road.