Getting the shingles shot might help lower your risk of dementia, and this benefit isn’t just because people who got the shot didn’t get shingles later or didn’t take antiviral drugs — it’s something else about the vaccine itself.

Getting the shingles shot doesn’t seem to make older people healthier in general—but it might specifically help lower their risk of dementia, and that’s probably not just a coincidence.

People who got the shingles vaccine didn’t have more or fewer other health problems than those just barely eligible for it—and since those groups were otherwise similar, it looks like the vaccine might help lower dementia risk, not just luck or other health habits.

People who were eligible for the shingles vaccine seem to be less likely to get diagnosed with dementia later on—and this link holds up no matter how researchers tweaked their study rules, which makes it look pretty real.

Getting the shingles shot might help lower your risk of getting dementia later on—not because people who get the shot go to the doctor more or get diagnosed with other illnesses less, but because the vaccine itself might be doing something protective for the brain.

Getting the shingles vaccine might help lower your risk of developing different kinds of dementia, especially a mix of Alzheimer’s and blood vessel problems in the brain.