Dementia risk could dip with common vaccine, study suggests
A study by Stanford Medicine, published in the journal Nature on April 2, found that the vaccine — which is used to prevent shingles — reduced the probability of a new dementia diagnosis by about 20% over the next seven years.
"If these findings are truly causal, the zoster vaccine will be both far more effective and cost-effective in preventing or delaying dementia than existing pharmaceutical interventions," the researchers noted in the study.
New Blood Test Diagnoses Alzheimer's Disease And Measures How Far It's Progressed
These findings also support an emerging theory that viruses impacting the nervous system can increase dementia risk.
Senior study author Pascal Geldsetzer, MD, PhD, assistant professor of medicine at Stanford, said he considers these findings "hugely important" for clinical medicine, population health and research.
Read On The Fox News App
"For the first time, we now have evidence that likely shows a cause-and-effect relationship between shingles vaccination and dementia prevention," he told Fox News Digital.
"We find these protective effects to be large in size – substantially larger than those of existing pharmacological tools for dementia."
The randomized trial took advantage of the unique way the zoster vaccine was rolled out in Wales, U.K., in 2013, Geldsetzer noted.
Two Alzheimer's Drugs Help Patients Live Independently At Home For Longer Periods
"They said that if you had your 80th birthday just prior to the start date of the program, you are ineligible, and you remain ineligible for life," he said. "If you had your 80th birthday just after, you were eligible for at least one year."
"We see in our data that just a one-week difference across this date-of-birth cutoff means that you go from essentially no one getting vaccinated to about half of the population getting vaccinated."
Both the vaccine-eligible and ineligible groups are "good comparison groups," according to Geldsetzer, since the only difference is that they were born a few days earlier or later.
The same protective effect of shingles vaccination for dementia has been identified in different populations and countries that rolled out the vaccine in a similar way, the researcher revealed.
Experimental Women's Cancer Drug Boosts Survival Rates In Notable Study
To gather more evidence and confirm the link, Geldsetzer recommends conducting a clinical trial.
"I'm currently trying to raise funds to conduct such a trial from private foundations and philanthropy," he said.
"We want to trial the live-attenuated vaccine (the vaccine for which we have generated our compelling body of evidence), which is no longer being manufactured in the U.S."
Family physician Dr. Mark Loafman, who was not involved in the study, weighed in on the association between the shingles vaccine and dementia risk.
"We commonly see intriguing headlines from studies showing an association between a particular health outcome and exposure to something in the environment, our diet or medication," the Chicago doctor said in an interview with Fox News Digital.
"The challenge when interpreting this type of data is that an association is in no way proof that the exposure is what caused the health finding."
Click Here To Sign Up For Our Health Newsletter
Loafman said this large-population study does a "very good job" of excluding the possibility that the vaccinated and unvaccinated groups share different attributes that could skew the outcome.
"So, it really does look like the vaccine does indeed offer a fairly significant level of protection against developing dementia."
"The study also includes compelling evidence to support two highly plausible mechanisms … in which the vaccine decreases the incidence of dementia," he added.
This includes the fact that the herpes virus, which causes chickenpox and shingles, settles into the nervous system and lies dormant, which can ignite shingles later.
For more Health articles, visit www.foxnews.com/health
"Secondly, the live-attenuated vaccines, like the shingles vaccine, are associated with neuroprotective properties," Loafman went on. "The association is not in itself causal, but this study adds a lot more credibility to this association."
Loafman, who has already received the shingles vaccine himself, said he will recommend it to patients in light of this research.
"These findings bring even more encouragement for me to recommend it to my eligible patients, friends and family," he said.Original article source: Dementia risk could dip with common vaccine, study suggests
Try Our AI Features
Explore what Daily8 AI can do for you:
Comments
No comments yet...
Related Articles
Forbes
11 minutes ago
- Forbes
When The Brain Remembers Cold, The Body Burns Fat
Anyone who has shivered through winter knows how powerfully the body responds to cold. But what if simply remembering the cold could trigger the same effect? Cold is one of the oldest forces our bodies have had to reckon with. For mammals, surviving it depends on a delicate coordination between the brain and the body's heat response systems, especially brown adipose tissue, a specialized fat that burns energy to generate heat. A new Nature study from Trinity College Dublin reveals that this ancient survival mechanism can be stored as a memory and reactivated on demand. Mice trained to associate a specific environment with a frigid 4°C chill later mounted the same full-body heat response when placed in that environment at a comfortable 21°C. Their metabolism surged, oxygen consumption increased and brown fat genes switched on: exactly as if they were back in the cold. The effect was traced to 'engram' neurons in the hippocampus, which encodes memory, and the hypothalamus, the brain's temperature-control center. These neurons stored the cold experience and, when activated, signaled the body to turn on its heat-generating systems. When scientists artificially stimulated these neurons with light, the cold-memory effect appeared instantly, even in warm conditions. Silencing them erased the effect entirely. Brown fat is emerging as a critical factor in metabolic health. People with more active brown fat tend to have better glucose control, healthier cholesterol levels and lower risk of obesity and cardiovascular disease. Current strategies to activate brown fat, such as extended cold exposure, are often uncomfortable and impractical. If humans share this memory-based mechanism, it could be possible to design interventions that activate brown fat through sensory cues, immersive environments or targeted brain stimulation, without subjecting people to prolonged cold. Such approaches could open new pathways for treating obesity, type 2 diabetes and age-related metabolic decline. For countless generations, survival hinged not just on fire and shelter, but on the body's ability to anticipate and withstand the freeze. Imagine an early human clan returning each winter to the same windswept valley. Long before the snow fell, the very memory of that place could prime their bodies for hardship, raising metabolism, warming the blood, preparing muscles to endure. Memory was not simply a story of what had happened. It was a tool for survival, reaching deep into the body's physiology. This ancient machinery has not disappeared. It lies within us still, silent but ready to be awakened. This study suggests that the brain's recollection of cold can act as a switch, turning on the metabolic furnace of brown fat even when the surrounding air is mild. In other words, the mind does not just recall the past; it rehearses it in the flesh. The implications stretch far beyond cold itself. Science has already shown that memories of stress can elevate blood pressure, while cherished experiences can bolster immunity. Now, temperature memories join this list, showing how the mind scripts the body's responses. Our inner life is not sealed off from our organs. It writes instructions that ripple through heart, liver, muscle and fat. The challenge ahead is both technical and imaginative. How might we safely harness these circuits? Could a sound, a smell or a virtual landscape serve as a key to unlock the body's hidden stores of resilience? Could physicians prescribe an environment or an experience in the same way they prescribe a pill? To do so would be to redefine medicine itself, turning memory from a passive archive into an active instrument of healing. Our memories, it turns out, are not ghosts of the past. They are levers of the present, tools we may one day learn to wield with precision. What began as an evolutionary trick to survive the cold may become a strategy to live longer, healthier lives. The story of memory is no longer only about who we are; it is about who we might yet become.
Yahoo
2 hours ago
- Yahoo
Anavex Life Pre-Treatment Prevented Cognitive Impairment In Animal Model of Alzheimer's Disease, New Publication Shows
Anavex Life Sciences Corp. (NASDAQ:AVXL) reported a peer-reviewed publication in the journal Neuroscience Letters on Wednesday. The study shows that a pre-treatment with blarcamesine prevented Amyloid beta-induced memory impairment and brain oxidative injury. "This preclinical study is exciting since it clearly demonstrates a preventative effect of blarcamesine in Alzheimer's pathology and potentially might be able to prevent onset of Alzheimer's disease in healthy individuals," said Tangui Maurice, PhD, Research Director at the University of Montpellier, France and author of the placebo-controlled mice developed significant amyloid toxicity in the brains after the toxic Aβ25-35 peptide injection, in animals pre-treated with blarcamesine, significant protection was observed, with less vulnerability to Aβ25-35-induced oxidative stress and less vulnerability to develop learning and memory deficits. The mechanistic confirmation that blarcamesine particularly restores impaired autophagy through SIGMAR1 activation by acting upstream of amyloid and tau pathologies at the molecular level was previously established in vitro and in vivo. Blarcamesine studies demonstrated the effect of enhanced autophagic flux in human cells and in C. elegans, as well as increased proteostasis capacity and ability to promote autophagosome biogenesis, autophagic cargo reception, and lysosome fusion. SIGMAR1 has emerged as a key therapeutic target in the treatment of neurodegenerative disorders. Its activation enhances autophagy, facilitating the degradation of amyloid-beta precursor protein (APP) and helping to normalize Aβ production. SIGMAR1 activation supports neurogenesis, mitigates oxidative stress by reducing reactive oxygen species (ROS), suppresses neuroinflammatory responses, and alleviates Aβ-induced toxicity. It also plays a critical role in maintaining endoplasmic reticulum (ER) integrity and modulating intracellular calcium signaling. Collectively, these effects contribute to restoring cellular homeostasis, rebalancing neural function, and promoting neuroplasticity. In April, Anavex Life Sciences announced that over three years of continuous treatment with blarcamesine (ANAVEX 2-73) demonstrated significant amelioration of clinical decline, showing continued clinical and meaningful benefit for early Alzheimer's disease patients. Price Action: AVXL stock is up 1.59% at $9.59 during the premarket session at the last check on Wednesday. Read Next:Photo via Shutterstock UNLOCKED: 5 NEW TRADES EVERY WEEK. Click now to get top trade ideas daily, plus unlimited access to cutting-edge tools and strategies to gain an edge in the markets. Get the latest stock analysis from Benzinga? This article Anavex Life Pre-Treatment Prevented Cognitive Impairment In Animal Model of Alzheimer's Disease, New Publication Shows originally appeared on © 2025 Benzinga does not provide investment advice. All rights reserved. Error in retrieving data Sign in to access your portfolio Error in retrieving data Error in retrieving data Error in retrieving data Error in retrieving data
Yahoo
2 hours ago
- Yahoo
Cheap supplement may protect against Alzheimer's in women
Omega fatty acids, found in certain fish or taken as a supplement, could potentially help ward off Alzheimer's disease in women, a new study suggests. Researchers found that lipids – fat molecules in the body – are different in women with Alzheimer's and those without. But they stressed that more work was needed to see whether 'shifting the lipid composition can influence the biological trajectory' of the disease. Scientists from Kings College London and Queen Mary University London, examined blood samples taken from 841 people, including 306 people with Alzheimer's; 165 with mild cognitive impairment and 370 healthy people. They discovered that there was a noticeable loss of unsaturated fats, including those that contain omega fatty acids, in the blood of women with Alzheimer's disease compared to healthy women, according to the study, which has been published in the journal Alzheimer's and Dementia: The Journal of the Alzheimer's Association. They also noted a steep increase in lipids with saturation – also known as 'unhealthy lipids' – in women with Alzheimer's compared to women without. But there was no difference between these fat molecules between men with, and without, a diagnosis of Alzheimer's – which researchers say could help deepen knowledge about why more women than men are diagnosed with Alzheimer's disease. 'Women are disproportionately impacted by Alzheimer's disease and are more often diagnosed with the disease than men after the age of 80,' said senior author of the study Dr Cristina Legido-Quigley, from King's College London. 'One of the most surprising things we saw when looking at the different sexes was that there was no difference in these lipids in healthy and cognitively impaired men, but for women this picture was completely different. 'The study reveals that Alzheimer's lipid biology is different between the sexes, opening new avenues for research. 'Our study suggests that women should make sure they are getting omega fatty acids in their diet – through fatty fish or via supplements. 'However, we need clinical trials to determine if shifting the lipid composition can influence the biological trajectory of Alzheimer's Disease.' Dr Asger Wretlind, first author of the study from King's College London, said: 'Although this still warrants further research, we were able to detect biological differences in lipids between the sexes in a large cohort, and show the importance of lipids containing omegas in the blood, which has not been done before. 'The results are very striking and now we are looking at how early in life this change occurs in women.' Dr Julia Dudley, head of research at Alzheimer's Research UK, which funded the study along with LundbeckFonden, said: 'In the UK, two in three people living with dementia are women. 'This could be linked to living longer, or other risk factors like social isolation, education, or hormonal changes from the menopause being at play. 'While this study shows that women with Alzheimer's had lower levels of some unsaturated fats compared with men, further work is needed. 'This includes understanding the mechanisms behind this difference and finding out if lifestyle changes, including diet could have a role.' People can consume omega-3 fatty acids by eating fatty fish including salmon, mackerel or sardines, or by taking a supplement. It comes as a separate study found that children who had a diet rich in omega-3 fatty acids may have a reduced risk of short sightedness. The study, published in the British Journal of Ophthalmology, examined data on 1,005 Chinese children aged between six and eight years, including their eye sight and regular surveys about their diet. Overall 28% of children had myopia. Researchers from Hong Kong found that a higher consumption of omega-3 fatty acids was associated with a lower risk of the condition.
