Shingles Increases Stroke Risk Later in Life (heart, symptom, virus)

[suzy_q2010]

"People ages 18 to 40 who had shingles were more likely to experience a stroke, heart attack, or transient ischemic attack (TIA) later on in life than those who had never had shingles, according to a new study that appeared online in Neurology.

'We hypothesize that the link between shingles and stroke or TIA occurring many years after shingles may be due to asymptomatic reactivation from its normally dormant state of virus, resulting in vasculitis (inflammation),' says study author Judith Breuer, MD, of University College London. '[Our] findings make us think that reactivating the virus, either as shingles or asymptomatically, over the years following shingles can cause inflammation of the arteries and stroke, TIA, or MI.' "

Shingles Increases Stroke Risk Later in Life | Consultant360

The chickenpox vaccine may have the beneficial unexpected effect of reducing the risk of vascular disease in later life, and the study provides a case for offering the shingles vaccine at earlier ages, particularly in people with known risk factors for vascular disease.

[73-79 ford fan]

I saw that. I had shingles at 15 years old and still have scars from it on the left side of my upper body now at 33 years old.

[Isotope-C14]

Originally Posted by suzy_q2010

"People ages 18 to 40 who had shingles were more likely to experience a stroke, heart attack, or transient ischemic attack (TIA) later on in life than those who had never had shingles, according to a new study that appeared online in Neurology.

'We hypothesize that the link between shingles and stroke or TIA occurring many years after shingles may be due to asymptomatic reactivation from its normally dormant state of virus, resulting in vasculitis (inflammation),' says study author Judith Breuer, MD, of University College London. '[Our] findings make us think that reactivating the virus, either as shingles or asymptomatically, over the years following shingles can cause inflammation of the arteries and stroke, TIA, or MI.' "

Shingles Increases Stroke Risk Later in Life | Consultant360

The chickenpox vaccine may have the beneficial unexpected effect of reducing the risk of vascular disease in later life, and the study provides a case for offering the shingles vaccine at earlier ages, particularly in people with known risk factors for vascular disease.

Sadly, I can't rep you more quite yet Suzy.

Nice link. Another note regarding strokes, it's been shown somewhere that I can't find that a strong correlation between eating breaded and fried fish may have some impact on stroke prevalence. I find that interesting as my grandfather loved breaded & fried fish, and had multiple strokes in his old age. I wonder if there wouldn't be a cumulative effect with shingles.

[suzy_q2010]

Thank you, C14!

The underlying mechanism for atherosclerotic cardiovascular disease appears to be inflammation, so it may well be that the cumulative effect of every inflammatory process we have contributes to the ultimate risk of heart attack and stroke.