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Dementia risk could dip with common vaccine, study suggests

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Dementia risk could dip with common vaccine, study suggests

The link between the zoster vaccine and a lower dementia risk has been strengthened in new research.

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.

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These findings also support an emerging theory that viruses impacting the nervous system can increase dementia risk.

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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.

Researchers have marked a link between the zoster vaccine and lower dementia risk in multiple data sets. (iStock)

“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.

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“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.”

nurse holding hands with a senior patient

The study found that women benefited from the vaccine more than men in terms of reduced dementia risk. (iStock)

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.

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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.”

Vaccine in the arm

The protective effect of shingles vaccination for dementia has been identified in different populations and countries, according to researchers. (iStock)

Family physician Dr. Mark Loafman, who was not involved in the study, weighed in on the association between the shingles vaccine and dementia risk.

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“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.”

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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.”

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Dementia brain scan

These findings support an “emerging theory” that viruses impacting the nervous system can increase dementia risk, according to Stanford Medicine. (iStock)

“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.” 

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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.

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Trump’s Focus on Punishing Drug Dealers May Hurt Drug Users Trying to Quit

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Trump’s Focus on Punishing Drug Dealers May Hurt Drug Users Trying to Quit

President Trump has long railed against drug traffickers. He has said they should be given the death penalty “for their heinous acts.” On the first day of his second term, he signed an executive order listing cartels as “terrorist organizations.”

But many public health and addiction experts fear that his budget proposals and other actions effectively punish people who use drugs and struggle with addiction.

The Trump administration has vowed to reduce overdose deaths, one of the country’s deadliest public health crises, by emphasizing law enforcement, border patrols and tariffs against China and Mexico to keep out fentanyl and other dangerous drugs. But it is also seeking huge cuts to programs that reduce drug demand.

The budget it submitted to Congress this month seeks to eliminate more than a billion dollars for national and regional treatment and prevention services. The primary federal agency addressing drug use, the Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration, has so far lost about half its workers to layoffs under the Trump administration and is slated to be collapsed into the new Administration for a Healthy America, whose purview will reach far beyond mental illness and drug use.

And if reductions to Medicaid being discussed by Republicans in Congress are realized, millions of Americans will be unable to continue, much less start treatment.

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The White House did not respond to requests for comment. The budget itself says that ending drug trafficking “starts with secure borders and a commitment to law and order” and that it is cutting addiction services deemed duplicative or “too small to have a national impact.”

Those cuts are agonizing, public health experts say, because they come just as the country is making sustained progress in lowering the number of fentanyl deaths. Many interventions may be contributing to that progress, including greater availability of the overdose reversal spray naloxone; more treatment beds, sober housing and peer counseling; and declines in the strength and quantity of the illicit drug supply, they say. But studies so far have not demonstrated convincingly which of those factors merit greater focus and investment.

“It would be a tragedy if we defund these programs without fully understanding what’s working and then our overdose rate starts to climb again,” said Dr. Matthew Christiansen, an addiction medicine physician in Huntington, W.Va., a city once labeled ground zero for the opioid crisis.

A letter signed by more than 320 behavioral medicine academic experts, sent Monday to congressional leaders, decried the cuts, including those to “community-based naloxone distribution, peer outreach programs, drug-use-related infectious disease prevention programs and drug test strip programs.”

The president’s budget calls for ending grants for “harm reduction,” a strategy to prevent disease transmission and keep drug users alive that has become largely accepted by mainstream addiction treatment providers.

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The budget derides federal financial support for “dangerous activities billed as ‘harm reduction,’ which included funding ‘safe smoking kits and supplies’ and ‘syringes’ for drug users.”

That language is a callback to false reports in 2022 that a $30 million federal harm reduction grant could be used to purchase pipes for smoking crack and meth. In fact, a small portion of that grant, designated for “safer smoking kits,” was for supplies like alcohol swabs and lip balm. The grant also supported programs in states that permit sterile syringe exchanges, effective in reducing hepatitis C and H.I.V. infection rates.

“You can’t just tell people to stop using drugs with a snap of the fingers,” said Dr. Christiansen, a former director of West Virginia’s drug control policy. “These are tools to reduce the harm of opioids while also helping them be successful long-term.”

According to the federal agency’s annual survey of substance use, in 2023, 27.2 million Americans ages 12 or older had a drug use disorder, 28.9 million had alcohol use disorder, and 7.5 million had both.

The budget does leave intact block grants for states to combat addiction and mental illness. But without the agency’s additional grants, hands-on training and monitoring, in addition to possible Medicaid reductions, states will not be able to afford the many medical and social services required to prevent and treat addiction, Dr. Christiansen said.

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David Herzberg, a professor of drug policy and history at the University at Buffalo, said that Mr. Trump’s almost single-minded linking of the nation’s drug problems with border issues harks back to late 19th-century America, when the government associated opium dens with Chinese immigrants. Fearing the incursion of Chinese workers and inflamed by press reports of Chinese men using opium to lure young white women into prostitution, Congress severely restricted Chinese immigration.

Then as now, Mr. Herzberg said, political conservatives found that targeting foreign drug suppliers was a muscular means of advancing broader agendas.

In contrast with highly publicized drug seizures, people who chronically use drugs have become afterthoughts, usually visible only as street irritants, their addiction perceived to be the result of their own choices, he said. Elected leaders who advocate for their welfare risk being tarred as soft on crime.

“If politicians are going to stick their necks out for them, I would be shocked,” Mr. Herzberg said.

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FDA warns seniors to avoid this vaccine after deadly complications

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FDA warns seniors to avoid this vaccine after deadly complications

Older adults are being warned against receiving the chikungunya vaccine before traveling.

The Ixchiq vaccination, developed by Valneva to prevent the mosquito-borne chikungunya virus, was approved by the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) in November 2023 as the first of its kind.

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The approval applies to anyone aged 18 and older who has a risk of being exposed to the virus.

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But the FDA and the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) released a safety notice on May 9 recommending that adults over 60 years old pause use of the vaccine due to fatal complications.

“FDA and CDC will continue the evaluation of post-marketing safety reports for Ixchiq,” the release reads. 

Older adults are being warned against receiving the chikungunya vaccine before traveling. (iStock)

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“While the safety of Ixchiq for use in individuals 60 years of age and older is being further assessed, FDA and CDC are recommending a pause in use of the vaccine in this age group. FDA and CDC will update the public when the agencies complete their evaluation of this safety issue.”

The advisory follows reports of “serious adverse events,” including neurologic and cardiac events in people who received the vaccine.

    

Two of 17 events resulted in death from severe complications. One death was caused by encephalitis, or inflammation in the brain, the alert stated.

Those who experienced adverse effects of the vaccine were reported to be between the ages of 62 and 89.

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A patient infected with chikungunya

A patient infected with chikungunya looks out from mosquito netting at the Clinicas Hospital in San Lorenzo, Paraguay, in March 2023. The FDA warned that Ixchiq, which contains a live, weakened version of the virus, may cause similar symptoms to chikungunya. (AP Photo/Jorge Saenz)

The FDA warned that Ixchiq, which contains a live, weakened version of chikungunya, may cause symptoms similar to the virus.

Typical symptoms of chikungunya include fever, severe joint pain, headache, muscle pain and a rash, according to the CDC. 

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Most people recover within a week, but some may experience “severe and disabling” joint pain for weeks or months. 

mosquito sucking blood from human

Chikungunya is spread by the bite of infected mosquitoes. (iStock)

“This virus is in a similar category as dengue or Zika and is carried by the same mosquitoes,” Fox News senior medical analyst Dr. Marc Siegel previously told Fox News Digital.

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At the time of the vaccine’s approval, the FDA described chikungunya as an “emerging global health threat,” with at least five million cases reported over the past 15 years. 

For more Health articles, visit www.foxnews.com/health

The FDA plans to conduct an “updated benefit-risk assessment” for Ixchiq use in those over 60 years of age, according to the notice.

Fox News Digital’s Melissa Rudy contributed to this report.

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Lose Weight up to 8x Faster With a ‘Green’ Diet for Fatty Liver

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Lose Weight up to 8x Faster With a ‘Green’ Diet for Fatty Liver


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Diet for Fatty Liver: How to Lose Weight Faster and Easier | Woman’s World




















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