New research from the University of Oxford found that people who received Shingrix had a lower rate of major cardiovascular problems, including heart attacks, strokes and heart failure, during the following three and a half years.
The study looked at health records from about 70,000 U.S. adults aged 60 and older. Researchers found a roughly 12% lower risk of cardiovascular events among people who received Shingrix.
The finding does not mean Shingrix is now a heart disease vaccine. The study was observational, and randomized trials are still needed to prove that the vaccination itself caused the reduction.
The Study Found About a 12% Lower Cardiovascular Risk
The research focused on the period when the United States moved from the older shingles vaccine Zostavax to the newer recombinant vaccine Shingrix.
That transition happened after Shingrix became available in 2017.
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Instead of simply comparing vaccinated people with people who never got vaccinated, researchers used the vaccine changeover to make the groups more comparable. That matters because people who choose vaccination can differ from unvaccinated people in ways that also affect their health.
According to The Guardian, the analysis found about a 12% reduction in cardiovascular events over roughly three and a half years.
The events included heart attacks, strokes and heart failure.
The size of the association is not enormous for one person, but even a modest reduction could matter at population level because cardiovascular disease remains the leading cause of death in the United States.
Our latest look at daily deaths in the U.S. shows that heart disease still causes more deaths than any other condition, with stroke also among the leading causes.
How a Shingles Vaccine Could Affect the Heart?
Shingles is caused by the varicella-zoster virus, the same virus that causes chickenpox.
After someone has chickenpox, the virus can remain inactive in nerve tissue for decades before reactivating as shingles.
Researchers are interested in the cardiovascular connection because shingles can trigger inflammation. Previous studies have found that the risk of stroke and heart attack rises for a period after a shingles infection.
Preventing that infection could therefore reduce some of the inflammation and stress placed on blood vessels and the cardiovascular system.
Scientists are also studying another possibility. Shingrix produces a substantial immune response, and researchers want to know if some of that effect extends beyond protection against the virus itself.
For now, neither explanation has been confirmed.
The Absolute Difference Was Smaller Than the 12% Figure Sounds
The 12% number is a relative reduction.
That does not mean 12 out of every 100 vaccinated people avoided a heart attack or stroke.
Cardiovascular events occurred in only a portion of the people followed in the study, so the difference in absolute risk was considerably smaller.
That distinction is important when interpreting vaccine studies. A modest change in individual risk can still have a meaningful public health effect when a treatment is used by millions of people.
Researchers quoted by The Guardian compared the size of the observed cardiovascular benefit with the effect seen from some commonly used blood pressure treatments.
That comparison makes the finding interesting, but it does not put Shingrix in the same category as medications prescribed specifically to prevent heart attacks and strokes.
Shingrix Is Also Being Studied for Dementia
The cardiovascular findings arrive during a wider debate over whether shingles vaccination has effects elsewhere in the body.
Several studies have linked shingles vaccination with lower rates of dementia.
Our team at NCHStats previously reported on a large Medicare analysis involving Shingrix and dementia risk. That study included more than 1.5 million older adults and found fewer dementia diagnoses among people who completed the two-dose vaccination series.
A separate 2026 study of nearly 69,000 U.S. patients already diagnosed with dementia found that Shingrix vaccination was associated with lower mortality during the first three years of follow-up and slower cognitive decline in a smaller subgroup.
Those results are interesting, but the dementia evidence is not settled.
Researchers from Oxford recently analyzed records from more than 6.3 million people in England and found little evidence that eligibility for the older shingles vaccine reduced hospital-recorded dementia.
That disagreement is one reason researchers are being careful about claiming benefits beyond shingles prevention.
Shingrix Is Already Recommended to Prevent Shingles
People do not need to wait for the cardiovascular research to decide whether Shingrix has an established medical purpose.
The vaccine is already used because it is highly effective at preventing shingles and its complications.
In the United States, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention recommends two doses of Shingrix for adults aged 50 and older. It is also recommended for adults aged 19 and older who have weakened immune systems because of disease or treatment.
Shingles becomes more common with age and can cause severe nerve pain that continues long after the rash disappears.
Vaccination is therefore already part of preventive care for many older adults, a group that also carries much of the burden from heart disease, dementia and other age-related conditions.
What the New Study Does Not Prove?
The new results should not be interpreted as evidence that people can replace proven heart disease prevention with a shingles vaccination.
Blood pressure control, cholesterol treatment, smoking cessation, physical activity, diabetes management and prescribed cardiovascular medications remain the established ways to reduce heart attack and stroke risk.
The researchers also cannot completely remove every difference between people who received one vaccine and another from health-record data.
A randomized trial would give a clearer answer.
Trials examining cardiovascular outcomes after shingles vaccination are now underway, according to researchers involved in the work.
If those trials produce similar results, Shingrix could eventually be viewed as doing more than preventing a painful viral infection.
For now, the new study adds another reason to investigate a pattern that has appeared repeatedly in recent years: people vaccinated against shingles seem to experience fewer serious health problems than researchers expected.
References
- The Guardian, Shingles vaccine linked to lower risk of heart attack and stroke, study finds
- STAT, Shingrix research on cardiovascular disease and dementia
- University of Oxford, Does the shingles vaccine prevent dementia? Evidence from 6.3 million people in England
- medRxiv, Recombinant zoster vaccination in patients with dementia is associated with improved survival and better cognitive preservation
