By 2060, the Incidence of Dementia May Drop Thanks to a Childhood Vaccine

The childhood chickenpox vaccine wasn’t meant to fight dementia—but it just might, by accident.

Figure 1. Electron microscopy of the varicella-zoster virus (VZV). Source: Gross (2006), Monographs in Virology.

When it comes to dementia prevention, most people think of crossword puzzles, exercise, or maybe the latest pharmaceutical drug. Almost no one thinks of a vaccine.

Yet, the shingles vaccine, designed to prevent painful rashes in older adults, has now been linked to a lower risk of dementia. As Eric J. Topol, MD, a highly influential scientist and author, wrote in an essay in Science, “Recently, three impressive natural experiments—observational studies of naturally occurring, real-world events—all pointed to the role of shingles vaccination in protection from dementia.” (More on this later.)

But there’s another vaccine in this story.

The childhood chickenpox vaccine also targets the same virus as the shingles vaccine: the varicella-zoster virus (VZV) (Figure 1). Now, if the adult shingles vaccination can protect against dementia, what about the childhood chickenpox vaccination? Could the chickenpox vaccine, introduced in the U.S. in 1995, help lower dementia rates by 2060, when that first vaccinated generation reaches their 60s and becomes at risk of dementia?