{"doi":"10.1002/cdt3.50","title":"Shingles vaccination reduces the risk of Parkinson's disease","abstract":"The most prevalent age-related movement condition, Parkinson's disease (PD), is characterized by bradykinesia, resting tremor, unbalanced gait, muscular rigidity, postural instability, as well as some nonmotor symptoms like autonomic and cognitive dysfunctions. PD is caused by a loss of nerve cells in a part of the brain, the substantia nigra. These cells are responsible for producing dopamine, which acts as a messenger between the brain and nervous system that helps control and coordinate body movements. If the nerve cells in the substantia nigra die or become damaged, the amount of dopamine in the brain is reduced. Motor control is impaired, causing movements to become slow and abnormal. The loss of nerve cells is a slow process. The symptoms of PD usually only start to develop when around 80% of the nerve cells in the substantia nigra have been lost.1 Lewy bodies and Lewy neurites collect alpha-synuclein in PD. Select peripheral autonomic nervous system neurons and central nervous system neurons are affected. The incidence of PD rises with age, and the lifetime frequency is 1%–5%. Multiple twin studies support the idea that environmental factors play a larger role in disease pathogenesis than do genetic factors, even though evidence for a few rare genetic mutations in a small subset of young people with PD cases offers some insights into the pathogenesis.2 Although the precise cause of PD is uncertain, mounting evidence points to viral infection as a potential factor. For instance, the varicella-zoster virus (VZV) may remain dormant in the ganglia and reawaken because of weakened immunity or aging. Herpes zoster (shingles) is a VZV infection that causes a painful skin rash and blisters on the dermatome infected. Herpes zoster may be related to PD, according to recent research.3, 4 Herpes zoster vaccination protects against Alzheimer's disease (AD), which is related to herpes virus infection.5-9 In the current analysis we attempted to determine if herpes zoster vaccination might reduce the risk of PD. Data on PD prevalence by US state is from Mantri et al.10 They identified 27,538,023 Medicare beneficiaries that met inclusion criteria, of whom 392,214 had a PD diagnosis in 2014. Data on Shingles vaccination among adults aged 60 and over in the US in 2018 is from Terlizzi and Black.11 The National Health Interview Survey (NHIS) data from 2008 to 2018 were used for this investigation. The NHIS is a household survey of the civilian, noninstitutionalized US population that is conducted nationally. It is continually carried out by the National Center for Health Statistics (NCHS) during the entire year. Although follow-ups to completed interviews may be made over the phone, interviews are conducted in respondents’ homes. Statistical analysis was performed with SPSS software (version 26.0, IBM). District of Columbia, New York, Illinois, Connecticut, and Florida had the lowest age-adjusted prevalence ranks and highest age-adjusted prevalence of PD. Figure 1 shows age-adjusted PD prevalence ranks in 50 US states and the District of Columbia versus the proportion of adults who had ever received a shingles vaccine. The relationship is statistically significant (p = 0.005, two-tailed). States with the most PD (lowest age-adjusted prevalence ranks) had the lowest proportion of adults aged 60 and over who had ever received a shingles vaccine. States with the highest prevalence of PD are defined to be states with the lowest prevalence ranks of PD. The proportion of female subjects versus the proportion of adults who had ever received a shingles vaccine is in Figure 2. The relationship is statistically significant (p < 0.001, two-tailed). Increased vaccination proportion led to significantly reduced female PD prevalence. Men have a higher incidence of PD.12 The proportion of dual eligibility for Medicare and Medicaid versus the proportion of adults who had ever received a shingles vaccine is in Figure 3. The relationship is statistically si","journal":"Chronic Diseases and Translational Medicine","year":2022,"id":292378,"datarank":0.0,"base_score":0.0,"endowment":0.0,"self_citation_contribution":0.0,"citation_network_contribution":0.0,"self_endowment_contribution":0.0,"citer_contribution":0.0,"corpus_percentile":null,"corpus_rank":null,"citation_count":4,"citer_count":0,"citers_with_citation_signal":0,"citers_with_endowment":0,"datacite_reuse_total":0,"is_dataset":false,"is_dataset_confidence":0.9618,"is_data_producer":false,"deposit_databanks":null,"is_oa":true,"file_count":0,"downloads":0,"has_version_chain":false,"published_date":"2022-01-01","fair_score":null,"fair_percentile":null,"algorithm_id":"datarank_citation_only_1hop_v6","ranking_scope":"data_only","authors":[{"id":542827,"name":"Peter H. Rheinstein","orcid":"0000-0002-4608-1665","position":1,"is_corresponding":false},{"id":542826,"name":"Steven Lehrer","orcid":"0000-0002-4850-094X","position":0,"is_corresponding":true}],"reference_count":15,"raw_metadata":null,"created_at":"2026-07-19T00:30:46.209549Z","pmid":"36926254","pmcid":null,"fwci":null,"citation_percentile":null,"influential_citations":0,"oa_status":null,"license":null,"views":0,"total_file_size_bytes":0,"version_count":0,"fair_f":null,"fair_a":null,"fair_i":null,"fair_r":null,"fair_zscore":null,"fair_rationale":null,"fair_model":null,"fair_agent_version":null,"fair_fulltext_source":null,"fair_has_llm":null,"fair_computed_at":null,"clinical_trials":[],"software_tools":[],"db_accessions":[],"linked_datasets":[],"topics":[]}