An episode of shingles can pose a short-term risk of stroke among people aged over 50, researchers warn today.
The shingles virus, herpes zoster, tends to cause a shingles episode in older adults and those with weak immune systems.
Shingles episodes have been linked to stroke and heart attack in studies from Europe and Asia, so Dr Barbara Yawn and her team at Olmsted Medical Center, Rochester, Minnesota, USA, investigated further. They took information on nearly 5,000 adults aged over 50 years, with a confirmed episode of shingles.
Compared with similar adults who had no history of shingles, there was a 50% increased risk for stroke for 90 days afterwards. Details appear in the journal Mayo Clinic Proceedings.
Dr Yawn said: "We 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. 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."
In terms of heart attack, the link was not reliable. "There did appear to be a small increased risk for heart attack at three months," said Dr Yawn, "but when you take other risk factors into consideration, it disappears."
No link was seen with either stroke or heart attack at any point beyond three months after the shingles episode.
The link with stroke could be due to the herpes virus affecting vascular tissues and the central nervous system, so "it may therefore be a systemic illness," the team suggest. Alternatively, the inflammatory response to herpes could raise the risk of stroke.
Yawn, B. P. et al. Risk of Stroke and Myocardial Infarction After Herpes Zoster in Older Adults in a U.S. Community Population. Mayo Clinic Proceedings 16 December 2015; doi: 10.1016/j.mayocp.2015.09.015 [abstract]
Leave a Reply