The shingles vaccine reduced the probability of new dementia diagnoses by around one-fifth over seven years, according to a large-scale study of a population in Wales, UK. The results were published in Nature. This finding suggests that the vaccine could be a cost-effective strategy for preventing or delaying dementia. However, further research is needed to determine whether the observed effects are truly causal and to understand how protection is conferred.
Recent studies have found associations between herpes virus infections and an increased risk of developing dementia, including Alzheimer’s disease, raising the question of whether vaccination might have a protective effect. However, testing this hypothesis is challenging, requiring large, matched populations of vaccine recipients and control individuals, along…