'Flu vaccine helps cut heart attacks'

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'Flu vaccine helps cut heart attacks'

November 16 2006 at 10:41AM

By Steenhuysen

Chicago - Getting a flu shot can reduce the incidence of death, heart attack

or unplanned procedures to open clogged heart arteries in patients with

coronary artery disease, Polish researchers said on Wednesday.

The study adds to a growing body of evidence suggesting that people with

heart trouble should get a flu shot every year.

" We know that people die of flu who have underlying cardiopulmonary disease.

It's only logical that if you are able to prevent flu with vaccine, you can

prevent these deaths, " said Dr Arnold Monto, professor of epidemiology at

the University of Michigan.

" Flu puts these people over the edge, " said Monto, who serves on the World

Health Organisation's Influenza Pandemic task force.

The study, which was conducted in Poland and presented at the American Heart

Association meeting in Chicago, involved 658 patients with coronary artery

disease. Of those, 325 received an active flu vaccine and 333 received a

placebo.

After 296 days, patients who did not receive the vaccine were nearly twice

as likely to have a heart attack, undergo an unplanned angioplasty to open

blocked arteries or die from heart-related causes.

Monto said the study was significant because it compared groups who received

the vaccine and groups who did not.

He said such a trial would be considered unethical in the United States

because of US guidelines recommending that heart patients get flu shots.

Flu is responsible for 36 000 deaths and 225 000 hospitalisations in the

United States each year, yet only one in three adults with heart disease got

flu shots in 2005, according to the American College of Cardiology.

" The study reinforces the principle that patients who have underlying

cardiac disease - particularly coronary artery disease - are somewhat

protected by having the influenza vaccine, " said Dr Leroy Rabbani, a

cardiologist at Columbia University Medical Centre in New York,

Rabbani said other studies have shown a link between inflammation and heart

attacks. " Anything that can decrease the opportunity for infection such as

flu vaccine will be beneficial, " he said.

The American Heart Association and the American College of Cardiology in

September issued a scientific advisory asking heart doctors to give flu

shots to their patients.

Coronary artery disease occurs when the arteries that supply blood to the

heart muscle become hardened and narrowed. It is the most common type of

heart disease and the leading cause of death in the United States in both

men and women.

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Anything to make it more attractive, huh? They will really be on to something

when they say it corrects erectile dysfunction!

Beverle