A recent study shows that seniors who get shingles will have a short-term, high risk of having a stroke. The study showed that up to 1/3 of individuals that had chickenpox eventually will have shingles and therefore according to the recent study, seniors within that group may be at risk for a stroke .
In the study, in a U.S. community-based population, about 5,000 adults over 50 in Olmsted County, Minnesota, who had a confirmed episode of shingles, were matched with a group of age and sex-matched individuals from the same community who had no history of shingles. Those adults who had a stroke prior to shingles were discounted from the study. The risk for stroke was calculated at three months, six months, one year and three years after the shingles. The risks for stroke and Myocardial Infarction (MI) were assessed separately. Patients with a previous stroke were excluded from the stroke analyses, and those with a previous MI were excluded from the MI analyses. The short-term risk of stroke and MI were assessed at three months, six months, one year, and three years after shingles.
The research found there was a 50% increased risk of stroke for three months after shingles, but the study also found that people who had shingles had many more risk factors for stroke than those who had not, suggesting they had worse health overall, explained lead investigator Barbara P. Yawn, MD, MSc, of the Department of Research, Olmsted Medical Center, Rochester, MN. The bottom line however is that shingles was still associated with an increased risk of stroke for three months afterwards even when we made allowances for these multiple risk and confounding factors. Researchers found that the association between shingles and MI at three months was neither strong nor robust across different analytic methods used. There did appear to be a small increased risk for Myocardial Infarction, but when you take other risk factors into consideration, it disappears, noted Dr Yawn.
The researchers raise the question of why stroke would be more common after an episode of shingles. Recent studies have shown that the zoster virus appears to affect vascular tissues as well as the central nervous system and that it may therefore be a systemic illness, stated Dr. Yawn. Another possible explanation is that stroke is a consequence of the inflammatory response that occurs with an acute zoster episode. This increased risk of stroke may be preventable by vaccinating against the zoster virus.
Shingles is the reactivation of the chickenpox virus, varicella zoster (VSV). Meaning, anyone who has had chickenpox has the ability to get shingles. Shingles usually appears as a rash that develops in one long strip.
There was no increased risk of either stroke at any point beyond three months.
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