Shingles Vaccine and Dementia

Dr. Jim Applegate joins the show to discuss a new study that looks at the relationship between the shingles shot and dementia. 

Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:00):
So another reason to get the shingles shot. This is
West Michigan's Morning News. Do you Kelly bred Keita Laurence Smith.
Doctor Jim Applegates joins us on the liveline once again, Doc,
thanks for doing this today.

Speaker 2 (00:13):
It's always a pleasure.

Speaker 1 (00:14):
So we talked a lot about dementia on the program.
Dementia Alzheimer's the thing we're the most afraid of moving forward.
But could there be a correlation a relationship between the two.

Speaker 2 (00:25):
Well, this is what's interesting. First of all, people have
to realize that what the shingle shot is aimed at
is the chicken pox virus. Now this is really interesting scientists,
if you have any science to do. Most people get
either a shingles immunization or they get the disease. I
had the disease when I was young. You know, back
in the sixties, everybody had the chicken pox parties and

(00:48):
so we all got chicken pox at the same time.
But in some people, the chicken pox virus will live
in the nerve, specifically in the dorsal root ganglion of
the nerve, and sometimes that that chicken pox virus will reactivate.
When it reactivates, it produces shingles, which goes right down

(01:10):
the nerve, which can be across your chest commonly. Sometimes
though it will be in your in your head, which
is the most dangerous, and it will be extremely painful.
It will go away. One in five thousand people will
develop a post her pedic neuralgia, which is chronic pain
in that nerve from the irritation. So that's one of

(01:30):
the reasons why they developed the shingle shots. So it's
to prevent this post herpetic neualgia that some people get.
So they did a study and this interesting study comes
out of Whales, and they gave people the old version
of the shingle shot and see what happened. And what
they found, surprisingly or maybe not surprisingly, is that it

(01:52):
actually was associated with lower risk of dementia as they
followed these people forward. And that's that was a really
surprising finding for us.

Speaker 1 (02:01):
And it was significant in those as well. So how
do the two work together?

Speaker 2 (02:09):
Well, So what we think happens is when you get
that when you get shingles, when you get that reactivation
of the virus, it not only goes down the nerve,
it probably goes up to your brain. And anytime you
get a viral infection of your brain, it can change it.
And you know, with dementia, one of you know, there's

(02:29):
lots of sort of risk factors like your age, genetic predisposition,
how healthy your blood vessels are, and we never really
thought about, you know, maybe that when the shingles virus reactivates,
it goes into your brain and causes an encephalitis or
maybe just a minute irritation in your brain. But over
time that may be enough to increase your risk of dementia.

(02:53):
And that's what we think is involved here, is that
because when you get this reactivation of the virus, it
affects your brain, not just the nerve, and that will
increase your risk for dementia.

Speaker 3 (03:05):
Doc, here's the scary stat of the day. And I'm
sorry to deliver this, but when I read this, I
just about fell over to the point of dementia. It
currently affects fifty seven million people worldwide. That number is
expected to wait forward ripple over the next twenty five years. Wow.

Speaker 2 (03:21):
Yeah, because we're all getting older. And that's why I
say one of the risk factors is just being older.
It's your age and there are things that we've talked
about the way to reduce your risk factors for dementia.
One of the things is to maybe get the shingle
shot and that will lower your risk of We talked
about when the virus grows in your brain, you know

(03:42):
this is going to be the real problem. And unfortunately
it's Schmidty's generation that's going to have to take care
of us and the rate of dementia is going to
really increase. But there are things you can do about it.
One is get the shingle shot, as we talked about.
One is to make sure your blood vessels stay really healthy,
so control your blood freshel control your cholesterol, Try and

(04:03):
continually exercise both physically and exercise your brain, keep those
connections going, and getting enough sleep because all those things
reduce your risk of dementia and keep your brain healthy.

Speaker 1 (04:15):
That is doctor Jim Applegate, always great stuff. Thanks for
your time today.

Speaker 2 (04:20):
My pleasure