Today’s Brain Booster was prompted by a whether question from Maya: My doctor said that the shingles vaccine can reduce the risk of dementia. I’d like to know whether this is true, and if so, why?
Yes — there is strong and growing real-world evidence from major epidemiological studies showing that the shingles vaccine is linked to a significant reduction in dementia risk.
Shingles is a painful, blistering viral infection caused by re-activation of the chicken pox virus. That means you can only get shingles if you’ve had chicken pox. The virus — which is a type of herpes virus called Varicella Zoster — infects cells around the spinal cord, and even after your chicken pox clears, the virus stays dormant in your nerve tissue.
In many people, the virus stays asleep for their entire life and never gives them any trouble. However, if your immunity declines for any number of reasons, you can get re-activation, and the second time around, it doesn’t cause chicken pox, it causes shingles.
So today’s Brain Booster is: do what you can to Shun Shingles. And getting the shingles vaccine is one effective way to shun shingles.
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Today’s HEALTH HEADLINE is: both men and women who receive the shingles vaccine have a lower risk of dementia. But the risk reduction in women is significantly greater than that for men.
Why?
Two simple reasons have been proposed.
The first is that women generally mount a more robust immune response to vaccinations than men, and the second reason is that dementia — particularly Alzheimer’s — is twice as common in women as in men. So if women face a higher baseline vulnerability to the disease, any medical intervention that successfully reduces brain inflammation or viral damage, is going to have a bigger statistical impact on them.
But the most important question is: what causes reactivation of the Zoster Varicella virus in the first place? What wakes it up from its dormant state in our nerve cells?
Tune in to discover the unexpected things that can weaken our immune defences and allow the virus to cause a painful outbreak of shingles.
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What’s missing from modern medicine is accurate advice on maintaining a robust immune system.
Forget high dose vitamin C, echinacea, and any number of supplements purported to ‘boost’ your immune system. They don’t. They’re just myths, misconceptions, misinformation, and marketing. However, if you have a blood test and are found to have a vitamin or mineral deficiency, by all means correct it with the appropriate supplement.
The other caveat is that if you BELIEVE vitamin C or echinacea will help ward off infections, then they might have a powerful placebo effect, and I don’t want to take that away from you. But as far as the research shows, mega-dosing on vitamin C has zero effect on whether or not you catch a cold. But it might just stop YOU from catching a cold because of your BELIEF in vitamin C.
Also the word ‘boost’ isn’t the right term when it comes to our immune system. Instead, we need a Goldilocks approach: not too much, and not too little.
An under-active immune system won’t be able to ward off infections and stop cancer cells from developing. However, an over-active immune system could turn against our body’s own healthy cells and lead to allergies or autoimmune diseases.
So where do we begin with maintaining an optimally functioning immune system?
What has been found to have the clearest impact on the health of our immune system?
Answer: long-term STRESS.
When I say stress, I’m referring to distress — something we perceive as negative, not the positive stress that accompanies a challenge or learning something new.
You’ll recall from podcast episode 17 Your beliefs become your biology, that people who perceive stress to be a positive force that builds resilience, have better health, more energy, and less depression than those who perceive stress to be harmful.
So how does distress negatively impact our immune system?
Your brain perceives distress as a threat, and triggers a biological alarm system — the fright, flight, fight branch of your nervous system (the sympathetic nervous system or SNS). This results in your adrenal glands pumping out stress hormones like adrenaline and cortisol to prepare your body for fast physical action. To conserve energy for this survival response, your body temporarily dials down your immune system. This suppression is perfectly healthy during brief intense bursts of fear, such as swerving to avoid a car accident, because an hour later, your immune cell counts return to baseline. However, when you experience unrelenting, long-term stress, this hormonal response never switches off. This means that cortisol levels remain chronically elevated, which steadily erodes your immune defences over time, and leaves you vulnerable to illness.
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Click here to watch the episode on my YouTube channel, or listen to Healing with Dr Helena on your preferred podcast platform. I’ll publish a new episode every Monday, and you’ll receive an email notification that morning. Please subscribe to my podcast or YouTube channel so that you don’t miss an episode, and send your whether questions to: podcast@drhelenapopovic.com
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I very much look forward to answering your questions, and exploring how we can all build a smarter brain, stronger body and deeply fulfilling life.
Please share this Health-e-Byte with anyone who is interested in brain health!
