An attack of shingles can increase the risk of having a stroke or heart attack years later, new research suggests.
For people under the age of 40, the viral infection boosted the chances of a stroke by 74% and a heart attack by 50%.
Older people were less affected, but shingles increased their risk of a heart attack by 10% and of a "mini-stroke" or transient ischaemic attack (TIA) by 15%.
Researchers studied data on 106,000 patients with shingles and 213,200 matched non-sufferers. Patient records were reviewed for an average of six years after a shingles diagnosis and for as long as 24 years.
Forty people with shingles went on to experience a stroke, compared with 45 of those without shingles.
People under 40 affected by shingles were more than twice as likely to have a TIA.
Shingles is caused by the same virus responsible for chicken pox, which can lie dormant in nerve roots for years before awakening and producing a painful rash.
Stress and inflammation may explain the link between shingles and stroke, scientists think. Study author Dr Judith Breuer, from University College London, said: "Anyone with shingles, and especially younger people, should be screened for stroke risk factors."
Why are you making commenting on The Herald only available to subscribers?
It should have been a safe space for informed debate, somewhere for readers to discuss issues around the biggest stories of the day, but all too often the below the line comments on most websites have become bogged down by off-topic discussions and abuse.
heraldscotland.com is tackling this problem by allowing only subscribers to comment.
We are doing this to improve the experience for our loyal readers and we believe it will reduce the ability of trolls and troublemakers, who occasionally find their way onto our site, to abuse our journalists and readers. We also hope it will help the comments section fulfil its promise as a part of Scotland's conversation with itself.
We are lucky at The Herald. We are read by an informed, educated readership who can add their knowledge and insights to our stories.
That is invaluable.
We are making the subscriber-only change to support our valued readers, who tell us they don't want the site cluttered up with irrelevant comments, untruths and abuse.
In the past, the journalist’s job was to collect and distribute information to the audience. Technology means that readers can shape a discussion. We look forward to hearing from you on heraldscotland.com
Comments & Moderation
Readers’ comments: You are personally liable for the content of any comments you upload to this website, so please act responsibly. We do not pre-moderate or monitor readers’ comments appearing on our websites, but we do post-moderate in response to complaints we receive or otherwise when a potential problem comes to our attention. You can make a complaint by using the ‘report this post’ link . We may then apply our discretion under the user terms to amend or delete comments.
Post moderation is undertaken full-time 9am-6pm on weekdays, and on a part-time basis outwith those hours.
Read the rules hereComments are closed on this article