Having Shingles increase Risk of Heart Attack and Stroke

 

People who have had shingles may have an increased risk of a major cardiovascular event, like heart attack or stroke in the long term. The heightened risk may also be greater for those who are immunocompromised.

Shingles, also known as herpes zoster, is a viral infection that causes a painful rash to break out on one part of the body, such as one arm or one side of the torso. It is caused by the varicella zoster virus (VZV), which is the same virus that causes chickenpox.

After a person has chickenpox, VZV stays in their body for the rest of their life. Years later, the virus may reactivate as shingles. VZV is the only human virus known to replicate in the arteries and lead to vasculopathy, or issues that affect the blood vessels.

The study, published in the Journal of the American Heart Association, found that shingles is associated with a nearly 30% higher long-term risk of a major cardiovascular event, for as many as 12 or more years following the illness.

The availability of a safe and effective shingles vaccine can help to reduce the risk of shingles as well as any cardiovascular complications.

However, Dr. Ashok Krishnaswami, a member of the American College of Cardiology’s Geriatric Cardiology Council and cardiologist in San Jose, California, noted that getting shingles is far from the only risk factor associated with heart disease, so getting vaccinated alone is not enough to prevent cardiovascular disease in the future. 

“Along with that, you should really try to get the other risk factors in control,” he said. 

These include having high blood pressure, high low-density lipoprotein (LDL) cholesterol, smoking or being exposed to secondhand smoke, having diabetes or obesity, eating an unhealthy diet, and not getting enough exercise.