Medscape reported that, according to a paper appearing online in Stroke, the risk for stroke, both ischemic and hemorrhagic, is increased by 30 percent within a year of "a herpes zoster attack," a figure that soars about four-fold should the attack involve the eye (herpes zoster ophthalmicus).

Researchers in Taipei reached those conclusions after scouring the Taiwan National Health Research Institute database to estimate the incidence of stroke among 7,760 adult patients treated for herpes zoster between 1997 and 2001, according to MedPage Today . Those patients were compared with 23,280 who had not been diagnosed with shingles.

The authors explained that the major mechanism of [their] findings is that stroke results from herpes zoster virus-induced vasculopathy [blood vessel damage].

The vessel to the brain damaged by the virus could be occluded [blocked] or ruptured lead investigator Dr. Jiunn-Horng Kang said.

Posted in: Conditions and Diseases, Health, Herpes zoster, Stroke, Taipei