Shingles Vaccine Shingrix Linked to Fewer Heart Problems, Study Finds

People who received the recombinant shingles vaccine Shingrix were less likely to develop serious cardiovascular disease than those who received an older shingles vaccine, according to a study published August 26 in Nature Medicine by Maxime Taquet, a data scientist at the University of Oxford, and his colleagues.

Shingles is a painful rash caused by the same virus that causes chickenpox, and it affects about 1 million people a year in the United States. The first shingles vaccine, made from a weakened form of the virus, was discontinued in 2017. That vaccine drew attention last year when a Stanford study suggested it might lower the risk of dementia, and Taquet's team had separately reported a similar signal for Shingrix, which is made from a single viral protein fragment rather than the whole virus.

Wondering whether Shingrix might also protect blood vessels in the brain and elsewhere in the body, Taquet's team set up a natural experiment: they compared people who received the older vaccine in 2017 with those who received Shingrix in 2018, then tracked both groups' electronic health records for seven years. Taquet called the possible added benefit "puzzling and interesting and intriguing," saying the vaccine might be helping health in ways no one had expected.

Halfway through the follow-up period, the Shingrix group had developed 1.3 percentage points fewer cardiovascular diseases — including heart failure, heart attack and stroke — than the older-vaccine group: 96 cases per 1,000 people, compared with 109 per 1,000.

Cardiovascular disease is the world's leading cause of death, and Taquet said even a small reduction in risk could save thousands of lives. Recent research has questioned the link between the older vaccine and dementia protection, but that doubt has not extended to Shingrix.