Getting vaccinated against shingles could significantly reduce your risk of cardiovascular problems. A study of more than 72,000 people suggests that those who have received the latest shingles vaccine are less likely to develop conditions like stroke or heart failure than individuals who got an older version of the jab. This may be because the latest vaccine contains a chemical that boosts the immune response and may reprogram immune cells to cause less inflammation.
The same vaccine has previously been linked to a significantly lower risk of dementia. The surprising vaccine side effects that can improve long-term health Shingles is an infection caused by reactivation of the varicella-zoster virus, which causes chickenpox. The condition, which causes a painful rash that can get infected, affects a third of people in the US at least once.
In 2025, a study linked being vaccinated against shingles to having a reduced risk of cardiovascular conditions, but this was based on comparing people who choose to get vaccinated with those who don’t. Vaccinated people tend to have healthier lifestyles in general, making it unclear whether shingles vaccination itself really boosts cardiovascular health, said Max Taquet at the University of Oxford during a press briefing. To address this, Taquet and his colleagues made use of the fact that, in October 2017, the standard shingles vaccine administered in the US switched from Zostavax to Shingrix.
The former contains a live, weakened version of the varicella-zoster virus, while Shingrix is made up of a protein from the virus, along with a chemical that strongly stimulates immunity, called AS01. The team analysed the medical records of more than 72,000 people aged 60 and older, about half of whom received Zostavax between April and September 2017. Nearly all the remaining participants received Shingrix the following year.
By 3.5 years after vaccination, 10.9 per cent of participants who had Zostavax had developed at least one of three conditions: heart failure, stroke or clogged arteries in the heart. This is compared with 9.6 per cent in the Shingrix group – a small but statistically significant difference. This benefit waned over the next 3.5 years but was still higher in the Shingrix group.
This is the best evidence yet that being vaccinated against shingles reduces the risk of cardiovascular disease, says Taquet. The availability of Shingrix in the US in October 2017 coincided with eligibility for a shingles vaccine being lowered from age 60 to 50. The researchers estimate that if everyone aged 50 and older in the US received Shingrix, it could delay or prevent hundreds of thousands of cases of cardiovascular problems within a decade, said Taquet.
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