Large study suggests shingles vaccine may help prevent dementia

CapeTalk's Clarence Ford interviews Barbara Friedman about this and other trending news on social media.

Listen below:

Researchers tracking dementia cases in older adults in Wales have uncovered the strongest evidence yet that the shingles vaccine may help protect against the brain disease.

Analysing the health records of more than 280,000 individuals, the study found that those who received a now largely discontinued shingles vaccine called Zostavax were 20% less likely to be diagnosed with dementia over the following seven years compared to those who did not receive the shot.

RELATED: Global dementia cases expected to triple in the next 25 years

A public health policy introduced on 1 September 2013 made people born on or after 2 September 1933 eligible for the Zostavax vaccine, while those born earlier were not.

This created a unique natural experiment: older adults, born just weeks apart, were divided into two groups based solely on vaccine eligibility.

This allowed researchers to compare dementia rates between the two groups.

While the exact mechanism behind the protective effect remains unclear, one leading theory suggests that shingles vaccines may reduce inflammation in the nervous system by preventing the reactivation of the virus.

"My radar always goes up when I see potential dementia cures because it is in my family, and it's in quite a lot of people's families."

- Barbara Friedman

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