How heart failure patients benefit from flu vaccine
Tuesday May 24th, 2016
The flu vaccine significantly cuts the need for hospital care for heart failure patients, according to the findings of a major UK study reported yesterday.
The study of general practice records found that heart failure patients who received the vaccine enjoyed a 30% reduced risk of needing hospital care for cardiovascular disease and a 16% reduced risk of needing hospital care for respiratory disease.
Overall for a period of nearly a year, there was a 4% reduced rate of hospitalisation.
The findings were reported to the Heart Failure 2016 conference in Florence, Italy, yesterday.
Researchers studied the health records of nearly five million adults in the UK to identify more than 59,000 heart failure patients. They say it was not ethically appropriate to set up a randomised control trial to answer the question.
Researcher Professor Kazem Rahimi, of Oxford University, UK, said: "These findings do not suggest that influenza infection causes myocardial infarction or other cardiovascular events.
"A more likely explanation for the reduction in risk of cardiovascular hospitalisation is that vaccination reduces the likelihood of an infection which could in turn trigger cardiovascular deterioration.
"The relative effect seems to be smaller for respiratory infections which may be due to fact that the vast majority of these hospitalisations are not related to influenza and in our study we were not able to distinguish between the different types of respiratory infection."
* A second study reported to the conference suggests a reduced risk of dementia among heart failure patients who receive the flu vaccine.
The findings come from a study of more than 20,000 patients in Taiwan over a period of 12 years.
The researchers found vaccination linked to a 44% reduced risk of developing dementia for those over the age of 70 and a 26% reduced risk for those in their 60s.
Researcher Dr Ju-Chi Liu, director of the Division of Cardiovascular Medicine, Department of Medicine, Taipei Medical University, said: "We think that the flu virus can activate the immune response and cause inflammation which may injure the brain cells.
"Respiratory infection during flu can induce changes in blood pressure and heart rate, referred to as an unstable haemodynamic status, which may also harm the brain tissue.
"These effects of the flu could play a role in the development of dementia, particularly in heart failure patients who already have impaired circulation in the brain."
Tags: Asia | Brain & Neurology | Europe | Flu & Viruses | Heart Health | Mental Health | UK News
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