Getting the shingles vaccine might help lower your risk of dementia, and this isn’t just because everyone born on the same day got other free health services too — because no other program in Wales used that exact birth date as a cutoff, so the link is likely real.

Getting the shingles vaccine might help lower your risk of dementia, and this isn’t just because people born on a certain date got other free health services too—because researchers checked, and no other health benefits jumped up for people born on that exact day.

People born right after November 2, 1936, got a free shingles shot when they turned 60, and over the next 7.5 years, fewer of them got dementia than people born just before that date—suggesting the vaccine might help protect the brain.

Getting the shingles vaccine didn’t make people start going to the doctor more for other things or change how they took care of their health overall—so if people who got the vaccine had less dementia, it’s probably because the vaccine itself helped, not because they became healthier in other ways.

Getting the shingles vaccine didn’t make people go to the doctor more for other things or change how often they were diagnosed with common long-term illnesses like diabetes or high blood pressure—so if people who got the vaccine also had less dementia, it’s probably because the vaccine itself helped, not because they got better overall care.

People in England and Wales who were eligible for the shingles vaccine were less likely to die from dementia, according to a big study of death records over nine years — but this doesn’t mean the vaccine prevents dementia, just that the two things happened together.