Getting the shingles vaccine can lower your chances of getting shingles by about 2.3 out of every 100 people over seven years — and this matches what earlier big studies found, so the method used in this study seems reliable.

Getting the shingles vaccine lowers your chances of getting shingles by about 37% over seven years — that means if 100 people get the vaccine, roughly 2 or 3 fewer will get shingles compared to those who didn’t.

If you're 65 or older, getting the newer shingles shot (recombinant vaccine) cuts your chance of getting shingles by about a third over six years compared to the older shot, and it works just as well for men and women.

A newer shingles shot works better than the old one at preventing shingles, and people who get the newer shot also seem less likely to get dementia—maybe because both problems are linked in some way inside the body.

If you're 50 or older and your immune system is healthy, getting two shots of this special shingles vaccine, two months apart, cuts your chance of getting shingles by almost all the way down—like going from a 10% risk to less than 0.3%.

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.