The effect of shingles vaccination at different stages of dementia

I wonder when we'll finally accept that there's no such thing as a harmless latent disease. Chickenpox, EBV, HPV, they're all associated with either neurodegeneration or cancer.

We should be vaccinating kids against all of them rather than sending them to Chickenpox parties.

from one of the previous papers:

"To provide causal as opposed to correlational evidence, we take advantage of the fact that, in Wales, eligibility for the zoster vaccine was determined on the basis of an individual’s exact date of birth. Those born before 2 September 1933 were ineligible and remained ineligible for life, whereas those born on or after 2 September 1933 were eligible for at least 1 year to receive the vaccine."

Eyting, M., Xie, M., Michalik, F. et al. A natural experiment on the effect of herpes zoster vaccination on dementia. Nature 641, 438–446 (2025). https://doi.org/10.1038/s41586-025-08800-x

Definitely got shingrix once I hit 50. The first one hit me pretty hard..

Did a blood antibody test, for some reason, no rubella anti-bodies. Will get that + dTap (9 years old, need tetanus booster soon anyway) before they outlaw them..

this is nice side benefit. but when you hit 50 you want the shingrex (two shots) vax ASAP. you def do NOT want shingles.

Article specifically refers to vaccination with live attenuated virus... Should a difference be inferred between Shingrix and Zostavax (in the context of the effect on dementia, not shingles)

Background to the question is providers here seem to be switching to Shingrix for (claimed) higher effectiveness against shingles, but there's at least some suggestion that Shingix is not live (attenuated) virus...

Too bad you can't get it until you're over 50 or immunocompromised.

Anyone skilled in the medical arts got a dumbed down synopsis of this?

(I just had my first shingles vaccine 2 weeks ago)

Get vaccinated. Stay healthy. Science works.

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This is fascinating