{"id":3761,"date":"2024-11-07T11:44:29","date_gmt":"2024-11-07T11:44:29","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/blog.villages.com.au\/?p=3761"},"modified":"2024-11-07T11:46:01","modified_gmt":"2024-11-07T11:46:01","slug":"free-vaccine-to-prevent-shingles-may-lower-the-risk-of-dementia","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/blog.villages.com.au\/health\/free-vaccine-to-prevent-shingles-may-lower-the-risk-of-dementia\/","title":{"rendered":"Free vaccine to prevent shingles may lower the risk of dementia"},"content":{"rendered":"\t\t<div data-elementor-type=\"wp-post\" data-elementor-id=\"3761\" class=\"elementor elementor-3761\">\n\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t<section class=\"elementor-section elementor-top-section elementor-element elementor-element-1031c33 elementor-section-boxed elementor-section-height-default elementor-section-height-default\" data-id=\"1031c33\" data-element_type=\"section\">\n\t\t\t\t\t\t<div class=\"elementor-container elementor-column-gap-default\">\n\t\t\t\t\t<div class=\"elementor-column elementor-col-100 elementor-top-column elementor-element elementor-element-e176cc0\" data-id=\"e176cc0\" data-element_type=\"column\">\n\t\t\t<div class=\"elementor-widget-wrap elementor-element-populated\">\n\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t<div class=\"elementor-element elementor-element-a9ca8de elementor-drop-cap-yes elementor-drop-cap-view-stacked elementor-widget elementor-widget-text-editor\" data-id=\"a9ca8de\" data-element_type=\"widget\" data-settings=\"{&quot;drop_cap&quot;:&quot;yes&quot;}\" data-widget_type=\"text-editor.default\">\n\t\t\t\t<div class=\"elementor-widget-container\">\n\t\t\t<style>\/*! elementor - v3.15.0 - 20-08-2023 *\/\n.elementor-widget-text-editor.elementor-drop-cap-view-stacked .elementor-drop-cap{background-color:#69727d;color:#fff}.elementor-widget-text-editor.elementor-drop-cap-view-framed .elementor-drop-cap{color:#69727d;border:3px solid;background-color:transparent}.elementor-widget-text-editor:not(.elementor-drop-cap-view-default) .elementor-drop-cap{margin-top:8px}.elementor-widget-text-editor:not(.elementor-drop-cap-view-default) .elementor-drop-cap-letter{width:1em;height:1em}.elementor-widget-text-editor .elementor-drop-cap{float:left;text-align:center;line-height:1;font-size:50px}.elementor-widget-text-editor .elementor-drop-cap-letter{display:inline-block}<\/style>\t\t\t\t<p>One in three people will develop shingles in their lifetime and the condition is most common in people aged 60 and older.<\/p><p>Shingles, which can lead to a painful rash and, in extreme cases, blindness or hearing loss, is a viral infection that comes from the same virus behind chickenpox.<\/p><p>Some researchers are linking shingles infections to an increased risk of dementia, though they haven\u2019t proven yet that it can lead to dementia.<\/p><p><strong>Is there a connection?<\/strong><\/p><p>A study by Harvard-affiliated Brigham and Women\u2019s Hospital, which was published in Alzheimer\u2019s Research &amp; Therapy, looked at data from three large studies of men and women. It involved 149,327 participants who filled in health surveys every two years. Both shingles and dementia were on the surveys.<\/p><p>Researchers found that participants with a history of shingles were 20% more likely to experience a condition called subjective cognitive decline.<\/p><p>Scientists aren\u2019t sure exactly why the link seems to exist, but it seems to be stronger among men who carry the APOE4 gene which has been linked to a higher risk of dementia.<\/p><p>The researchers also think shingles could lead to \u201cneuroinflammation, cerebral vasculopathy, direct neuronal damage, and the activation of other herpesviruses like HSV-1,\u201d which may increase the risk of dementia.<\/p><p>\u201cWe\u2019re evaluating to see if we can identify risk factors that could be modified to help reduce people\u2019s risk of developing shingles,\u201d the paper\u2019s senior author Sharon Curhan told The Harvard Gazette.<\/p><p>\u201cWe also want to study whether the shingles vaccine can help reduce the risk of adverse health outcomes from shingles, such as cardiovascular disease and cognitive decline.\u201d<\/p><p><strong>Vaccinate against shingles for free<\/strong><\/p><p>Fortunately, you can protect yourself against shingles.<\/p><p>There is a free shingles vaccination in Australia for people aged 65 and older, Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people aged 50 and older and high-risk immunocompromised adults with certain medical conditions.<\/p><p>Vaccination is a safe and effective way to protect yourself from serious complications caused by shingles.<\/p>\t\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t<\/section>\n\t\t\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>One in three people will develop shingles in their lifetime and the condition is most common in people aged 60 and older. Shingles, which can lead to a painful rash and, in extreme cases, blindness or hearing loss, is a viral infection that comes from&#8230;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":3762,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"content-type":"","om_disable_all_campaigns":false,"_mi_skip_tracking":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[72],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-3761","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-health"],"aioseo_notices":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.villages.com.au/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3761","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.villages.com.au/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.villages.com.au/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.villages.com.au/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.villages.com.au/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=3761"}],"version-history":[{"count":7,"href":"https:\/\/www.villages.com.au/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3761\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":3769,"href":"https:\/\/www.villages.com.au/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3761\/revisions\/3769"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.villages.com.au/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/3762"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.villages.com.au/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=3761"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.villages.com.au/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=3761"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.villages.com.au/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=3761"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}