{"id":1877,"date":"2026-06-28T10:40:50","date_gmt":"2026-06-28T10:40:50","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/trustedmovinggroups.com\/?p=1877"},"modified":"2026-06-28T10:40:50","modified_gmt":"2026-06-28T10:40:50","slug":"shingles-vaccine-may-also-offer-protection-against-dementia-studies-increasingly-show","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/trustedmovinggroups.com\/?p=1877","title":{"rendered":"Shingles vaccine may also offer protection against dementia, studies increasingly show"},"content":{"rendered":"

The shingles vaccine may significantly help protect older adults against dementia, a growing body of evidence shows.<\/p>

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Exactly how is unclear. The nervous system, however, likely holds clues.<\/p>

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Shingles, a condition triggered by the reactivation of the varicella-zoster virus in the body, can cause a \u201cwar zone\u201d of inflammation in the brain, said Dr. Jennifer Pauldurai, the medical director of the Inova Brain Health and Memory Disorders Program in northern Virginia.<\/p>

People who have had chickenpox are at risk of developing the burning, itchy rash years or decades later. Long-term, debilitating nerve pain, called postherpetic neuralgia, is the most common complication of shingles because the varicella-zoster virus hides in the peripheral nervous system.<\/p>

It\u2019s not that the shingles vaccine itself is a \u201cmagic pill,\u201d Pauldurai said. Rather, the vaccine guards against the disease, which is known to disrupt brain health.<\/p>

\u201cWhen the brain is stressed or challenged with any kind of illness, underlying risks for dementia become more apparent,\u201d Pauldurai said. \u201cWe are more likely to get dementia when our brain is not as healthy as it could be, had we not gotten sick from shingles.\u201d<\/p>

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A study published June 16 in the Annals of Internal Medicine indicates 1 in 17 dementia cases could possibly be prevented by shingles vaccination. Patients in nursing facilities who had received at least one dose of the shingles vaccine within a year of admission had a 5.8% lower risk of developing dementia over the next four years, according to health records of more than 509,000 people, ages 66 and older, who had been admitted to U.S. nursing facilities from 2017 through 2022.<\/p>

\u201cThat\u2019s huge,\u201d said Kaley Hayes, the lead study author and associate director of pharmacoepidemiology in the Center for Gerontology and Healthcare Research at the Brown University School of Public Health, who was surprised by the robust protection.<\/p>

International research has yielded comparable results. A study of more than 282,000 older adults in Wales, published in Nature last year, found shingles vaccination was associated with a 3.5% reduced dementia risk over seven years.<\/p>

According to a study of more than 101,000 older adults in Australia, published last year in the Journal of the American Medical Association, vaccine eligibility corresponded to a 1.8% reduced dementia risk over 7.4 years. A similar study of more than 232,000 older adults in Canada, published in February in the Lancet Neurology, linked vaccine eligibility to a 2% reduced dementia risk over 5.5 years.<\/p>

The varicella-zoster virus causes both chickenpox and shingles. More than 99% of Americans born in 1980 or earlier have had chickenpox, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. The first chickenpox vaccine was approved in 1995. About 1 million people in the U.S. develop shingles annually.<\/p>

Previous research has established a link between shingles infection and increased dementia risk. For example, a study published last year in the Journal of Prevention of Alzheimer\u2019s Disease found that older adults in Italy hospitalized with severe shingles had a 13% higher risk of dementia compared to the general population.<\/p>

Shingles can cause buildup of Alzheimer\u2019s proteins<\/h2>

A person\u2019s risk for shingles increases with age, largely because the immune system naturally weakens over time.<\/p>

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When the shingles virus is reactivated, it may trigger the accumulation of amyloid and tau in the brain, \u201cthose bad proteins related to Alzheimer\u2019s disease,\u201d said Dr. Timothy Chang, an assistant professor of neurology at the Mary S. Easton Center for Alzheimer\u2019s Research and Care at the University of California, Los Angeles.<\/p>

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