Hacker NewsComments URL: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=48881874
Points: 120
# Comments: 101
Hacker News 讨论
135 points · 102 comments · 查看原帖
- robot_jesus
I'm in my 40s with genetic predisposition for Alzheimer's. Been seriously considering the past year or two paying out of pocket for Shingrix. I think it would be ~$500 total for two doses. Sure, I could wait 7 or 8 years until I qualify via insurance, but is that really worth the risk for what is an easily absorbed cost to me? Especially when I have a friend in her late 30s who just went through a very rough bout of shingles? It makes sense to have targets like age 50 for population-wide public health recommendations. But it can and does infect people of much earlier ages. Recent articles like this make me think I'll go ahead.
- modeless
Unfortunately this is a spurious finding. See this presentation: https://youtu.be/qlTnnQytOJ0 The mechanism is that people with the shingles vaccine are less likely to visit the hospital (because they don't get shingles). Because they have fewer hospital visits they are less likely to receive an incidental diagnosis of dementia from a hospital.
- hereme888
Replicated association, which is strong, but not proof. Initial study saw a 3.5% absolute reduction in dementia diagnoses over seven years with a very wide confidence interval. In Australia the study was replicated with 1.8% absolute reduction over 7.4 yrs. Canadian replication: 2% over 5.5 yrs. Infections generally increase the risk of future dementia. Like the more colds you have throughout life.
- what_hn
Is it also possible they're finding healthier people that are proactive in their treatment, maybe even exercise more, work longer, etc...
- antaviana
So if you had shingles in your youth then you are better protected against dementia?
- jonatron
I got shingles after the covid vaccine, which is a rare but statistically highly significant risk: https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/35470920/ . Both covid and shingles sucked, luckily it was years ago now.
- mullingitover
> Another is that the vaccination gives the immune system a firm kick up its B-cells, activating it against other bugs that might contribute to dementia. It's weird that they kinda gloss over the very real and open questions here, because the idea that the AS01 adjuvant is involved in the dementia protection is very much alive and an ongoing topic. A paper from last year[1] looked into it and found that the Shingrix shingles vaccine and the RSV vaccine are about the same in their risk reduction for dementia (with a bunch of caveats). I believe the current evidence point to the shingles vaccine helping, but also a protective effect happening from the AS01 adjuvant on its own. I'm not a researcher but my layman's take is that the Economist whiffed it here, and there's a more interesting and complicated story to be told beyond this clickbait-adjacent science journalism. [1] https://pmc.ncbi
- ChrisMarshallNY
I had the vaccine, last year (but I’m 64). Hoowee, it made me sick , but only for a day (twice, as you get a booster, six months later). Had chickenpox (and measles, at the same time), when I was a kid. That was fun. My mother used to get recurring bouts of the shingles. Definitely not fun.