Can a shingles shot help prevent memory loss?

If kids born just before and after a vaccine eligibility cutoff get vaccinated at different times, scientists can compare them to see if getting the vaccine early helps prevent dementia later in life — like a real-life experiment without random assignment.

If you can stop the chickenpox virus from waking up again in your nerves, it might calm down brain swelling and reduce harmful protein buildups that lead to memory problems and dementia.

Getting the shingles vaccine might help lower the risk of dementia in women a lot more than in men—and it doesn’t seem to help men at all—so maybe men and women’s brains respond differently to the vaccine.

Getting the shingles shot when you're in your late 70s might lower your risk of getting dementia by about 20% over the next seven years—maybe because the virus that causes shingles could also be involved in brain changes that lead to dementia.

Getting the shingles shot might help lower your chances of getting dementia later in life—and this link shows up no matter how scientists check the data, so it’s probably real and not just a fluke.