Shingles jab may reduce risk of heart attack, pioneering research reveals
Getting the shingles vaccine could lower your risk of a heart attack or stroke by as much as 20%, according to the first study of its kind.Shingles is a common condition affecting millions worldwide that causes a painful rash and can lead to serious problems such as deafness, long-lasting pain and blindness.It is more likely to cause serious problems in older age groups.Most countries tend to only recommend the vaccine to older people or immunosuppressed adults but the findings suggest it could have cardiovascular protective effects in adults as young as 18.The results from the study, the world’s first global systematic review and meta analysis, shows the jab is associated with a significant lower risk of cardiovascular events.
Having the shingles jab was associated with an 18% lower risk of stroke or heart attack in adults 18 and above.There was a 16% reduction in risk of cardiovascular events in adults 50 or older.The data will be presented this weekend to thousands of cardiologists at the annual meeting of the European Society of Cardiology in Madrid, the world’s largest cardiology conference.Dr Charles Williams, the study’s author and global associate medical director at GSK, said: “We looked at the currently available evidence, and found that in this analysis, vaccination against herpes zoster was associated with a lower risk of cardiovascular events, such as heart attacks or strokes.“Further research studies are now needed to find out whether this association can be attributed to an effect of herpes zoster vaccination.
”The global systematic review was conducted using three scientific literature databases, and a meta analysis was conducted of phase 3 randomised controlled trials and observational studies assessing the effect of herpes zoster vaccination on cardiovascular events,The shingles jab is usually just taken once, and is typically administered in two doses, several months apart,In total, 19 studies were included in the review,Eight observational studies and one randomised controlled trial met the inclusion criteria for studying the impact of the jab on cardiovascular events,Vaccination is increasingly been seen as an effective measure not only against specific infections, but also for the prevention of cardiovascular disease or events.
Prof Filippo Crea, a cardiology professor at the Catholic University in Rome, who was not involved with the study, said: “These results support a growing body of evidence … which indicates that vaccinations reduce the risk of cardiovascular disease.”Prof Bryan Williams, the chief scientific and medical officer at the British Heart Foundation, also not involved with the research, welcomed the findings but said further research was needed.He said: “There is great interest in studies suggesting the shingles vaccine may reduce the risk of cardiovascular events, although this analysis is largely based on observational studies, which cannot demonstrate cause and effect.“We know that shingles can cause inflammation in the body, and that inflammation is a culprit in many heart and circulatory conditions which can lead to heart attacks and strokes.“By preventing shingles, vaccination could therefore be protective.
But far more research is needed, especially to understand the intriguing results in younger people,More evidence will be needed before the shingles vaccine can be recommended for a wider age group,”The findings came as NHS England said 300,000 more people would become eligible for the shingles jab from next week,People eligible from 1 September are those between 18 and 49 with a severely weakened immune system,The NHS previously expanded eligibility to include people over 50 with a severely weakened immune system.
Embroidering history: the V&A should take a pluralistic approach in the Middle East | Letter
We were interested to see your gallery of pictures from the exhibition Thread Memory: Embroidery from Palestine at V&A Dundee (‘A symbol of Palestinian presence and identity’: the personal and political world of ‘tatreez’ – in pictures, 18 August), having visited the partner exhibit at V&A South Kensington.The tatreez embroidery tradition should indeed be celebrated, but as scholars we are concerned by the failure to use historically correct language, and to recognise the diversity of cultures that existed in the area presented here simply as “Palestine”. Formally speaking, there was no such place in the late 19th and early 20th centuries, when several of these objects were produced.The showcase is situated within a larger gallery devoted to the “Islamic Middle East”: a framework that erases the historic presence of Christians and Jews in the region. The V&A possesses interesting Jewish textiles from Iraq, but alas there is no space for them in the section dedicated here to “Ottoman embroidery”
Susan Sarandon, Whoopi Goldberg and Caliban’s take on The Tempest: the best theatre, comedy and dance of autumn 2025
This musical drama tackles the aftermath of the Lockerbie bombing in 1988, bringing to life the friendships forged between locals from the Scottish borders and the American relatives of those on Pan AM flight 103. Co-produced with the National Theatre of Scotland, and the inaugural show for the reopening of the Citizens theatre’s redeveloped building, it includes 14 actor-singers and a five-piece roots band. Could this be the new Come from Away? Citizens theatre, Glasgow, 9 September-4 October“This ain’t no classic play b*tches.” So reads the advertising tagline to this part spoken-word reimagining of Euripides’s orgiastic ancient drama about a group of women who tear a king to bits. Written by Nima Taleghani, it is the first playwright’s debut to be performed on the Olivier stage and is helmed by Indhu Rubasingham, the National Theatre’s new director
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Olivia De Zilva: the 10 funniest things I have ever seen (on the internet)
As a perpetually lonely child in the planned suburbs of Adelaide, I grew up on the internet. The first memory I have of accessing YouTube was waiting three days for my dial-up internet to load Vanessa Hudgen’s music video for Come Back to Me. It cost my parents a lot of money, but I couldn’t resist the pull of funny cat videos, Sims 2 music videos and early era TMZ. Before I learned how to read novels, I read trash magazines back to front. I didn’t know what a verb was but I could detail a blind item from back to front
Isabelle Huppert to headline 2026 Adelaide festival in ‘astounding’ role as Mary, Queen of Scots
French screen and stage legend Isabelle Huppert will bring her acclaimed performance as Mary Stuart, AKA Mary, Queen of Scots, to Australia in March as part of an exclusive season for the 2026 Adelaide festival.Mary Said What She Said, a one-woman show created by late theatre luminary Robert Wilson for Théâtre de la Ville in Paris, where it premiered in 2019, stars Huppert as the ill-fated monarch and devout Catholic whose dispute over the English throne with her Protestant cousin Queen Elizabeth I cost her her life.The play, written by novelist Darryl Pinckney, is set in the lead-up to Mary’s execution for treason in 1587 after 19 years in captivity and draws on Stuart’s letters to craft a “testimony” against accusations that she plotted, among other things, to assassinate Queen Elizabeth.Reviewing the show’s UK premiere in 2024, the Guardian critic Claire Armitstead described Huppert’s performance as “astounding”. “Alone on stage for 90 minutes, she performs something between a rite and an elaborate courtly dance, her stylised, repetitive movements and moments of stillness accompanied by Pinckney’s poetic script casting a spell over her audience,” Armitstead wrote
Space, stadiums, poses and prizes: the best art and architecture of autumn 2025
The Palestinian artist, whose charged vision has encompassed everything from an endoscopy video of her own interior to a fiery red Earth, takes on the revered modernist Alberto Giacometti in the second of a series of dialogues between his sculptures and living art. They share a surreal eye for the organic. JJ Barbican, London, 3 September to 11 JanuaryAcerbic, radical and wildly inventive, playwright and television dramatist Dennis Potter (1935-1994) is the subject of Lloyd’s new work, which includes archival footage from Potter’s plays, texts and television interviews, new commentaries and live, performative interludes. Potter’s continuing relevance, his politics and his stoicism in the face of death provide the core of Lloyd’s project. AS Studio Voltaire, London, 10 September to 11 JanuaryMost of Tate’s Picassos – plus myriad major European loans – star in an exhibition that positions the constantly transforming creator as a showman of modern art
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