WASHINGTON (dpa-AFX) - A new study from Stanford Medicine looked at medical records of older adults in Wales and found that people who received the shingles vaccine were 20 percent less likely to develop dementia over the next seven years compared to those who did not get the shot.
The study, published in Nature, explained that viruses that affect the nervous system may increase the risk of dementia and that preventing infections could lower that risk.
During the study, the researchers reviewed health records of more than 280,000 people aged 71 to 88 who did not have dementia before the vaccination program began. They compared those who just missed eligibility with those who just qualified.
Over the next seven years, the researchers noted that the vaccine lowered the risk of shingles by about 37 percent, similar to earlier clinical trial results. By 2020, around one in eight participants had developed dementia, but those who got the vaccine were 20 percent less likely to develop it than those who did not.
Further analysis showed that people who received the vaccine were also less likely to develop mild cognitive impairment. Also, it revealed that the protective effect against dementia was stronger in women than in men, possibly because women generally have stronger immune responses and shingles is more common in women.
However, scientists still don't know whether the vaccine boosts the immune system, stops the virus from reactivating, or works through another process. They hope these findings will lead to more studies on whether vaccines could be used to help prevent or slow dementia.
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