Shingles Vax Protects Against Heart Disease, Dementia, Death

MONDAY, Oct. 20, 2025 (HealthDay News) — The shingles vaccine does more than just protect middle-aged folks and seniors against maddening rashes, a new study says.

The vaccine also lowers their risk of heart disease, dementia and death, researchers reported in Atlanta Sunday at IDWeek, the joint annual meeting of America’s top infectious disease professional societies.

According to the new study, adults 50 and older who get the shingles vaccine have a:

• 50% lower risk of dementia caused by blood flow problems

• 27% lower risk of blood clots

• 25% lower risk of heart attack or stroke.

• 21% lower risk of premature death

“Shingles is more than just a rash — it can raise the risk of serious problems for the heart and brain,” said researcher Dr. Ali Dehghani, a doctor of internal medicine at Case Western Reserve University School of Medicine in Cleveland.

“Our study findings show that the shingles vaccine may help lower those risks, especially in people already at higher risk for heart attack or stroke,” Dehghani said in a news release.

For the study, researchers analyzed health records from more than 174,000 adults across 107 U.S. health systems, comparing those who got the shingles vaccine with those who hadn’t.

Previous studies have shown that a shingles infection can trigger heart and brain complications, researchers noted.

These new findings suggest that the shingles vaccine might help protect against those complications, as well as preventing shingles itself.

Currently, two doses of shingles vaccine are recommended for adults 50 and older, according to the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.

About 1 in every 3 people in the U.S. will have shingles, the CDC says.

Shingles occurs in people who’ve had a prior chickenpox infection, but it’s not necessary to know whether you’ve had such an infection to get the vaccine, the CDC says. More than 99% of Americans born before 1980 had chickenpox, even if they don’t remember it.

The virus that causes chickenpox, varicella zoster, lies dormant in a person’s immune system for decades before re-emerging to cause the painful, tingling or itchy rashes known as shingles.

Shingles can break out at any age among prior chickenpox patients, but it typically affects people older than 50 who are under stress and have compromised immune systems.

IDWeek is the joint annual meeting of the Infectious Diseases Society of America, the Society for Healthcare Epidemiology of America, the HIV Medicine Association, the Pediatric Infectious Diseases Society and the Society of Infectious Diseases Pharmacists.

Findings presented at medical meetings should be considered preliminary until published in a peer-reviewed journal.

More information

The U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention has more about shingles.

SOURCE: IDWeek, news release, Oct. 19, 2025