Shingrix Shingles Vaccine Linked To 12 Per Cent Lower Heart Attack, Stroke Risk In First 3.5 Years: Study

Mumbai, August 26, 2026: The current shingles vaccine, Shingrix, may significantly reduce the risk of heart attack and stroke, according to researchers who say the potential cardiovascular benefits could help prevent thousands of deaths each year.

The study, based on health records of 70,000 people in the US, found that those who received Shingrix had a 12% lower risk of a cardiovascular diagnosis during the following three-and-a-half years. Researchers said that, if confirmed, the benefit could be comparable to taking daily blood pressure-lowering medication, The Guardian reports.

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Researchers See Potential For Major Health Benefits

Dr Maxime Taquet, a clinical lecturer at the University of Oxford who led the study, said: “If confirmed in clinical trials, vaccinating older adults against shingles could prevent hundreds of thousands of coronary heart diseases, strokes and cases of heart failure worldwide, making it one of the most impactful interventions we could offer to protect both the brain and the heart in later life. The effect might be enormous.”

Shingles is a painful and potentially serious condition caused by the reactivation of the chickenpox virus, which remains dormant in the body following an earlier infection. The disease can cause a rash and nerve pain that may continue for months or years after the rash disappears, a complication known as post-herpetic neuralgia.

The first shingles vaccine, Zostavax, became available in 2006 and used a weakened version of the chickenpox virus. It was later succeeded by the more effective Shingrix vaccine, which uses newer vaccine technology. In the UK, Shingrix is being made available incrementally to people aged 65 to 79 as part of a phased rollout.

Study Tracks 70,000 Adults For Seven Years

Previous studies have suggested that people vaccinated against shingles may have a lower risk of cardiovascular disease. However, because those studies compared vaccinated people with unvaccinated people, their findings were potentially open to distortion.

The latest study sought to address this limitation by comparing the incidence of cardiovascular disease among people vaccinated before and after the rapid US switch from Zostavax to Shingrix in 2017.

Researchers tracked the health records of 70,000 adults aged 60 and above for seven years after vaccination, which involved an initial dose followed by a booster.

Shingrix was associated with a 12% reduction in cardiovascular events, including heart attacks, heart failure and stroke, during the first three-and-a-half years after vaccination. By the end of the seven-year follow-up period, it was associated with a 4% lower risk of cardiovascular diseases, according to the study published in Nature Medicine.

Although the change in absolute risk was small, researchers said its overall impact could be substantial because heart disease and stroke are leading causes of death.

“If confirmed in a [randomised controlled trial], the effect of Shingrix would be equivalent to antihypertensives,” Taquet said.

Clinical Trials Could Provide More Definitive Evidence

Several trials are under way that could provide more definitive evidence on the vaccine's cardiovascular effects. Researchers are also examining why Shingrix may offer such protection.

One possibility is that shingles itself increases the risk of heart and vascular diseases, meaning a more effective vaccine could reduce that risk. Another possibility is that the vaccine has broader effects on the immune system that suppress inflammatory proteins.

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Dr Hugo Pedder, a research fellow in statistical modelling at the University of Bristol who was not involved in the study, said: “A randomised trial would be the best way to confidently answer whether recombinant vaccines do provide the benefits seen here versus live vaccines, but until such a trial is done this study provides some of the best-quality observational evidence supporting an effect of recombinant v live vaccines for cardiovascular outcomes.”

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