Generally speaking, vaccines are designed for protection against specific diseases, but sometimes their protections may go a bit further. Such is the case with the shingles vaccine. Recent research suggests that besides helping folks over 50 avoid a painful shingles outbreak, it might actually help people stay younger, longer.
This comes on the heels of previous research that found another positive “side effect” of the vaccine that it may lower the risk of dementia.
Essentially, the researchers found that individuals who received the shingles vaccine showed significantly “younger” biological profiles compared to their unvaccinated peers.
In this study, published in the Journal of Gerontology: Biological Sciences, researchers Jung Ki Kim and Eileen Crimmins analyzed blood samples from nearly 4,000 Americans aged 70 and older. They were looking for “biological clocks.”
We all know our chronological age, but “biological age” is different. It’s the rate at which your cells and tissues are actually degrading. To measure this, the researchers analyzed seven specific biological domains, including inflammation, immunity, and epigenetic clocks — molecular markers on your DNA that can predict mortality.
This isn’t something you can measure with a standard check-up. It requires looking at the molecular “wear-and-tear” that predicts when you’ll get sick. But the results were clear. Even after adjusting for wealth, education, smoking habits, and chronic diseases, the people who got the shingles vaccine had significantly lower “age acceleration.
Basically, vaccinated participants had significantly lower inflammation scores and showed lower aging rates, particularly in the first three years after the vaccine.
Fighting “Inflammaging”
Why would a vaccine for a skin condition slow down aging? The leading theory is the suppression of “inflammaging,” the chronic, low-grade systemic inflammation that grinds down our bodies as we get older.
The shingles vaccine is designed to suppress the virus that causes chicken pox. If you had chicken pox as a child, the virus never leaves you, it remains dormant, kept in check by your immune system. As you age, your immune response weakens and the virus can flair up as shingles. The vaccine helps to prevent this, and it seems as an added bonus it also reduces stress on your immune system and thereby also reduces “inflammaging.”
Simply put, if you suppress the virus, you lower the inflammation and stop it from damaging your DNA. This, in turn, can slow down aging.
“By helping to reduce this background inflammation — possibly by preventing reactivation of the virus that causes shingles, the vaccine may play a role in supporting healthier aging,” said Kim.
“While the exact biological mechanisms remain to be understood, the potential for vaccination to reduce inflammation makes it a promising addition to broader strategies aimed at promoting resilience and slowing age-related decline.”
You can read the entire study by clicking on this link.
