Australia data confirm shingles vax linked to lower dementia risk

Embargoed until: Publicly released: 2025-04-24 10:00

Australia; NSW

SELF Magazine, https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/2.0/

Australian data has confirmed that having the shingles vaccine can reduce your chances of developing dementia. In Australia, people who turned 80 after 1st November 2016 were eligible for free shingles vaccination, whereas those who turned 80 before this date were not, allowing researchers to compare two groups of people of similar age, one with access to free jabs, and the other without. The study found that having access to the shingles vaccine decreased the likelihood of receiving a new dementia diagnosis during 7.4 years of follow-up by 1.8%. The data support similar findings from Wales, and the authors say the results suggest that shingles vaccination is a low-cost, high-reward intervention to reduce the burden of dementia.

Attachments

Note: Not all attachments are visible to the general public. Research URLs will go live after the embargo ends.

Research JAMA, Web page Please link to the article in online versions of your report

Journal/
conference: JAMA

Research:Paper

Organisation/s: Neuroscience Research Australia (NeuRA), The University of New South Wales, George Institute for Global Health, Stanford University, USA

Funder: This study was funded by the Phil and Penny Knight Initiative for Brain Resilience at theWu Tsai Neurosciences Institute, Stanford University (KPI-003 [Dr Geldsetzer]); National Institutes of Health/National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases (DP2AI171011 [Dr Geldsetzer]); National Institutes of Health/National Institute on Aging (R01AG084535 [Dr Geldsetzer]); and a Chan Zuckerberg Biohub investigator award (Dr Geldsetzer).

Media Contact/s

Contact details are only visible to registered journalists.