I am not sure how big in the news this has been recently because I only heard it once and in passing, so I thought I’d share it here in case anyone missed it. Researchers have been studying the link between having shingles and then later developing dementia for a few years. Their findings consistently showed a link between the two conditions, but parsing out the lifestyle differences was always an issue. They managed to study a population and create a scenario that was akin to a randomized trial where they rolled out the vaccine in Wales in a very controlled way. Only 79 year old people were given the vaccine each year, while the people who were already 80 and older never received it. These groups of people were completely alike in every way, yet those who got the vaccine were 20% less likely to later develop dementia. Women showed an even greater protective result. I got this information from the Stanford Medicine News Center which is a well written, easy to read article. The original findings were published in Nature.
The reason that having shingles leads to a greater chance of developing dementia is unclear, but might have to do with the virus itself, or how it weakens certain key elements in the body’s functioning.
Peace and Protection 💜🌱✨