The effect of shingles vaccination at different stages of the dementia disease course

Xie, Min, Eyting, Markus, Bommer, Christian, Ahmed, Haroon ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0002-0634-8548 and Geldsetzer, Pascal 2025. The effect of shingles vaccination at different stages of the dementia disease course. Cell 10.1016/j.cell.2025.11.007

PDF - Published Version Available under License Creative Commons Attribution. Download (4MB)

Abstract

Using natural experiments, we have previously reported that live-attenuated herpes zoster (HZ) vaccination appears to have prevented or delayed dementia diagnoses in both Wales and Australia. Here, we find that HZ vaccination also reduces mild cognitive impairment diagnoses and, among patients living with dementia, deaths due to dementia. Exploratory analyses suggest that the effects are not driven by a specific dementia type. Our approach takes advantage of the fact that individuals who had their eightieth birthday just after the start date of the HZ vaccination program in Wales were eligible for the vaccine for 1 year, whereas those who had their eightieth birthday just before were ineligible and remained ineligible for life. The key strength of our natural experiments is that these comparison groups should be similar in all characteristics except for a minute difference in age. Our findings suggest that live-attenuated HZ vaccination prevents or delays mild cognitive impairment and dementia and slows the disease course among those already living with dementia.

Item Type:	Article
Date Type:	Published Online
Status:	In Press
Schools:	Schools > Medicine
Publisher:	Elsevier
ISSN:	0092-8674
Date of First Compliant Deposit:	8 December 2025
Date of Acceptance:	5 November 2025
Last Modified:	08 Dec 2025 16:00
URI:	https://orca.cardiff.ac.uk/id/eprint/182992

Actions (repository staff only)

Edit Item