![\"Curing](\"https:\/\/blueheronhealthnews.com\/site\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/10\/Radiation-278223376.jpg\")
The problem with modern medicine is that when doctors try to cure one disease with medication, it causes side effects that can lead to another disease.<\/p>\nThe problem with modern medicine is that when doctors try to cure one disease with medication, it causes side effects that can lead to another disease.<\/p>\n
According to a new study, this is exactly the case with shingles.<\/p>\n
Shingles occurs when the herpes zoster virus, after lying dormant in your body, reactivates and causes painful blisters. <\/p>\n
You are most at risk when your immune system is compromised, as it then cannot stop virus reactivation. <\/p>\n
A new study in the journal Cancer<\/em> has just shown how, for example, radiation therapy for cancer puts us at risk of shingles.<\/p>\n The researchers mined data from a Japanese institutional cancer registry and medical records between 2011 and 2015. They identified 17,655 cancer patients whom they divided into a radiation therapy group and a non-radiation therapy group. They could then compare them to see who would go on to develop shingles.<\/p>\n In the first year after the beginning of the radiation therapy, 2.1% and 0.7% of radiation therapy and non-radiation therapy patients, respectively, developed shingles. <\/p>\n After two years these percentages were 3.0% versus 1.0%, after three years 3.4% versus 1.3%, after four years 4.1% versus 1.7%, and after five years 4.4% versus 1.8%.<\/p>\n This shows clearly that a larger percentage of radiation therapy patients suffered from shingles than the non-radiation therapy patients did.<\/p>\n The researchers concluded that radiation therapy patients were 2.5 times more likely to have shingles than the non-radiation therapy patients did.<\/p>\n When they looked at the location of the shingles outbreaks, they found that these were often at or very close to the site where the radiation therapy was applied.<\/p>\n