The Shingles Vaccine May Be Helpful In Preventing A Common Age-Related Illness

Truth: You don’t want to get shingles, the condition that occurs when the dormant virus that causes chickenpox reactivates. Often, it leads to painful rashes and blisters. (Which makes the crazy, frustrating symptomatic itching of chickenpox seem like a walk in the park.) Fortunately, there’s a fast way to lower your risk of being diagnosed: Get a shingles (herpes zoster) vaccine.

The shingles vaccine has been available throughout the United States since 2006, according to the National Vaccine Information Center, and it’s designed to help you avoid an outbreak of shingles. But it may do much more: Research suggests that when you protect your body with a shingles vaccine, you may end up protecting your mind against age-related degenerative cognitive impairments that are called dementia.

According to the World Health Organization, around 57 million individuals worldwide live with dementia. Each year, around 10 million new people are diagnosed. There isn’t a cure for dementia, although some medications and therapies can slow the mental decline of those who are affected by the condition.

Scientists discovered a possible connection between the shingles vaccine and dementia as part of a 2025 study published in Nature. The experiment looked at medical data of a relatively homogeneous population of older adults who had and hadn’t gotten the shingles vaccine.

Those who had received the shingles vaccine were about one-fifth less likely within a seven-year timeframe to be diagnosed with any type of dementia. Interestingly, the female subjects seemed to fare more favorably than their male counterparts in terms of having fewer cases of dementia.

Since the subjects received the live-attenuated shingles vaccine called Zostavax and not the recombinant vaccine Shingrix, it’s not clear from the experiment if Shingrix would have the same effect. (This matters because Zostavax is no longer used in the United States.)

That said, a 2024 study in Nature Medicine came to a similar conclusion about the dementia-fighting potential of Shingrix. However, the study authors cautioned that larger studies were warranted to provide more evidence.

But why would the shingles vaccine have such unintended potential benefits in the first place? According to the original Zostavax study, shingles reactivations have been associated with the development of dementia due to deposits of proteins in brain cells, as well as neuroinflammation. Consequently, stopping those reactivations might save the brain from the disease.

As explained by Northwestern University medical professor Dr. Aarati Didwania in an interview with NBC News, it might not matter how the process works as long as it works. “Is it by decreasing inflammation or preventing the virus from reactivating?” she mused, ultimately noting that shingles “is a terrible, painful and debilitating condition,” so getting the vaccine is important regardless of whether or not it lowers dementia risk. (Here’s what to expect from your body when you receive a vaccine .)

According to the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, all people should consider getting the Shingrix vaccine after they turn 50. Even those who previously received the Zostavax vaccine may want to discuss receiving the Shingrix vaccine with their providers.