About this episode
According to the Alzheimer’s Association, nearly seven million Americans currently suffer from that type of dementia. Experts expect that more will be burdened with it in the future, as baby boomers continue to reach advanced ages. Many people are eager to protect the brain from deterioration. In this episode, we discuss an unexpected approach to lowering your risk for Alzheimer disease (AD) and other dementias–get a shingles shot!
At The People’s Pharmacy, we strive to bring you up?to?date, rigorously researched insights and conversations about health, medicine, wellness and health policies and health systems. While these conversations intend to offer insight and perspective, the content is provided solely for informational and educational purposes. Please consult your healthcare provider before making any changes to your medical care or treatment.
How You Can Listen
You could listen through your local public radio station or get the live stream at 7 am EST on Saturday, March 7, 2026, through your computer or smart phone (wunc.org). Here is a link so you can find which stations carry our broadcast. If you can’t listen to the broadcast, you may wish to hear the podcast later. You can subscribe through your favorite podcast provider, download the mp3 using the link at the bottom of the page, or listen to the stream on this post starting on March 9, 2026.
How to Protect the Brain with Vaccination
Our guest, Dr. Pascal Geldsetzer, has led three impressive studies that took advantage of natural experiments to see if vaccination against shingles could protect the brain from dementia. The results were remarkably consistent and encouraging.
What Is a Natural Experiment?
In Wales, when the Zostavax shot against shingles first became available, public health authorities established eligibility criteria to get it through the national health system. Welsh citizens had to be born on or after September 2, 1933, to get the shot. This created a situation in which two groups of people differed only by birth date and by whether or not they were immunized. (Most people who were eligible for the shot got it.) This mimics a randomized clinical trial in which the only difference between two groups is the intervention. The absolute risk reduction over 7 years was 3.5%, which means that people who got the shot were 20% less likely (relative risk) to be diagnosed with dementia. That big difference is statistically significant (Nature, April 2, 2025).
Wales is not the only country that set up eligibility requirements. Australia did, too. In Australia, everyone between 70 and 79 years old as of Nov. 1, 2016, could get a free shingles shot and many people did. Here, too, you have a group of senior citizens who differ from each
