Getting the shingles shot might help lower your risk of dementia—even if you still get shingles afterward—suggesting the vaccine protects your brain in ways beyond just preventing the rash.

Getting the shingles vaccine might help lower your risk of dementia—not just because it prevents shingles, but because it might be doing something else good for your brain, since even when scientists accounted for shingles cases, the dementia benefit stayed strong.

People in Wales aged 70 and older who got the shingles shot were 28% less likely to be diagnosed with dementia over the next six years — but that doesn’t mean the vaccine prevents dementia, just that the two seem to be linked in some way.

Getting the shingles vaccine doesn’t make people more likely to die or get sick from other reasons, so if some studies link it to dementia, it’s probably not because vaccinated people are sicker overall or getting more medical checkups.

Getting the shingles vaccine might help lower your risk of dementia—not because it treats shingles with pills, but because it stops the virus from waking up in your body, and that could be good for your brain.

People in their late 70s who got the shingles shot were 20% less likely to develop dementia over the next seven years compared to those who didn’t get it — that’s about 3.5 fewer cases of dementia per 100 people.