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Dec 9, 2025
Shingles vaccination is linked to fewer dementia diagnoses and deaths in older adults
News-Medical.net
By Dr. Priyom Bose, Ph.D.Reviewed by Lauren HardakerDec 7 2025
Natural experiment data from Wales suggest that shingles vaccination may help lower the risk of cognitive decline and reduce dementia-related deaths, highlighting a potential role for immunisation across the dementia disease course.
Study: The effect of shingles vaccination at different stages of the dementia disease course. Image Credit: BlurryMe / Shutterstock
A recent study in the journal Cell investigated the effect of herpes zoster (HZ) vaccination on dementia and mild cognitive impairment (MCI), using quasi-experimental population data.
Relationships between neurotropic viruses and dementia
Neurotropic viruses could cause and accelerate the dementia disease process through neuroinflammation. Reactivation of the varicella zoster virus, a neurotropic herpesvirus that causes chickenpox and shingles, may act as a chronic immune stressor, triggering inflammatory pathways in both the peripheral and central nervous systems. A previous study has linked varicella zoster virus to amyloid buildup, tau protein aggregation, and cerebrovascular changes that mimic those found in Alzheimer's disease, including vessel disease, ischemia, infarction, and hemorrhage.
Neurotropic herpesviruses can remain latent in the nervous system after primary infection and reactivate with age, causing encephalitis. Reactivation also disrupts neuroimmune balance in older adults. Therefore, preventing both clinical and subclinical reactivation of neurotropic herpesviruses with HZ vaccination may help reduce neuroinflammatory stress and slow or prevent dementia. However, the underlying mechanisms remain to be fully clarified, while supporting neuroimmune health and cognitive reserve in older adults overall.
Several studies have shown that vaccinations have broader health benefits beyond their intended target. These beneficial off-target effects were often more prominent in females than in males and were more significant with li
