Flu jabs 'may prevent heart attack'
Updated on 18 April 2007
Thousands of lives could be saved by providing flu jabs to prevent heart attacks, researchers have said.
A major US study found a clear link between influenza outbreaks and heart disease-related deaths.
The risk of dying from a heart attack increased by a third during weeks when people were catching flu, the investigation of more than 35,000 deaths found.
Deaths from chronic ischaemic heart disease (IHD), a weakening of the heart caused by previous heart attacks, also peaked during epidemics, rising by a tenth.
The scientists made an urgent call for flu vaccines to be offered to everyone at risk of heart disease.
Study leader Professor Mohammad Madjid, from the University of Texas in Houston, said: "My public health message is that flu is an important killer in cardiac patients. If people can recognise that the flu vaccine has specific cardioprotective effects, then high-risk people will be more likely to make sure that they receive the influenza vaccine every year.
"We know from our other research that one in three people with heart disease do not consider themselves at high risk for heart-related complications from influenza and therefore do not receive the annual flu shots. Currently, people are not practising as we preach, and doctors need to work to change this."
Flu infection is thought to cause acute inflammation that can destabilise atherosclerotic plaques in the arteries.
These are hard deposits of cholesterol and fibrous tissue which build up on blood vessel walls during a person's life. When they rupture it can lead to the formation of clots that may block blood flow to the heart and trigger a heart attack.
Prof Madjid's team worked with colleagues in St Petersbourg to investigate heart disease deaths that had occurred in the Russian city between 1993 and 2000. The findings, published in the European Heart Journal, showed that a total of 11,892 people died of heart attacks, and 23,000 from IHD.
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