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Comment by btilly | Hacker News Reader

Yet again. Preventing amyloid-beta buildup cures the mouse model that we have for Alzheimer's. We have on the order of a dozen drugs that got to stage 3 trials based on, "prevents amyloid-beta buildup, and cures mice." In every case we found that we can prevent amyloid-beta buildup in humans as well, but we failed to cure or even halt the progression of Alzheimer's.

In other news, we have shown that taking a shingles vaccine will reduce your odds of getting Alzheimer's.

I am extremely dubious that yet another treatment for amyloid-beta that works on mice, will do anything useful in humans.

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If the herpes virus can increase the odds of getting Alzheimer's, then taking valacyclovir is another thing that can be done to reduce the odds.

Question then: would a shingles infection also be expected to reduce the odds of Alzheimer's?

Just an idle thought, no sources needed or expected, but you'd think that if you actually GOT shingles it'd be the same effect as not getting shingles because you did get the vaccine?

Like getting the measles vaccine and getting measles are the same thing?

I don't think that's quite what they're saying.

I think they're saying that the only thing the shingles vaccine should cause is the immune response to it, which you should also get from getting shingles, so does getting shingles have the same effect?

Seems like a valid question to me.

Exactly! Grandparent response says (without sources) that "Alzheimer's might be leftover shingles", where my original misinterpretation of it was that "shingles antibodies prevents Alzheimer's".

Of course real research or sources needed, but just some idle curiosity to update my mental map of what's going on.

I think your comment was pretty reasonable based on the info in the comment you were replying to.

My personal best guess is no. That a low-level shingles infection getting into your brain can cause Alzheimer's. And therefore a shingles infection creates a risk of Alzheimer's.

The way that the vaccine preserves us is by reducing the odds of there being a shingles infection in the first place.

That said, this is only my guess. We do not actually know the mechanism by which the vaccine helps. Nor do I have any evidence or data supporting my guess.

Succinct and informative.

What vaccine is that?

>A natural experiment on the effect of herpes zoster vaccination on dementia

https://www.nature.com/articles/s41586-025-08800-x

The herpes zoster vaccine given to the elderly in Wales born after September 1933 [1], which is a live-attenuated vaccine (Zostavax). Recently, a new herpes zoster recombinant subunit vaccine was introduced (Shingrix).

[1] https://www.nature.com/articles/s41586-025-08800-x

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