Getting vaccinated for the viral illness shingles, which causes a painful rash, could potentially be the next best tool in preventing dementia, a new study published in Nature finds. The research, led by Stanford Medicine, found that among Welsh older adults, those who received the shingles vaccine were less likely to develop dementia over the next seven years than those who did not receive the vaccine.
The researchers studied the Wales shingles vaccination program that rolled out in 2013, where adults who were under 80 years old were eligible, but those who were 80 or older were not. They analyzed health records of over 280,000 adults ages 71 to 88 years old who did not have dementia at the time of the program, focusing on those closest to either side of the eligibility threshold—comparing people who turned 80 in the week before the rollout with those who turned 80 in the week after.
