Researchers hunt for weapons against shingles

Solution may be a souped-up chicken pox vaccine or behavioral intervention to boost the immune system.

By Victoria Stagg Elliott, AMNews staff. Nov. 3, 2003.

The search for therapies to prevent shingles among the elderly has honed in on two very different possible interventions -- tai chi and a strong dose of the chicken pox vaccine.

A study of 36 adults older than 60 found that 15 weeks of tai chi, a Chinese exercise program focused on body movement, increased cell-mediated immunity to the painful re-activation of the varicella virus. Results were published in the September/October issue of Psychosomatic Medicine.

"Ours is the first randomized, controlled study to demonstrate that behavior can have a positive effect on immunity that protects against shingles," said Michael Irwin, MD, lead author of the study and a professor at the University of California, Los Angeles, Neuropsychiatric Institute.

Meanwhile, a study in which 196 elderly individuals who had received varicella shots in previous research were given booster shots found that the vaccine could bolster immunity to shingles. The findings were presented at the Interscience Conference on Antimicrobial Agents and Chemotherapy in Chicago in September.

The vaccine, which is similar to the one used in childhood but at a much larger dose, has by far generated the most interest. Several early studies have suggested that a version of the varicella vaccine can produce immunity in the cells, but it will be the long-running Shingles Prevention Study that is expected to finally answer the question at the end of 2004. That effort is a double-blind, placebo-controlled, multicenter trial involving more than 38,000 subjects organized by the U.S. Dept. of Veterans Affairs in conjunction with Merck & Co., the vaccine manufacturer, and the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases.