Related Resources • How to survive a heart attack • Heart attack links

By DrRich

Dateline: 05/05/03

A remarkable cross section of distinguished physicians - cardiac specialists, public health specialists, and infectious disease specialists - met in Houston last week for the First Symposium on Influenza and Cardiovascular Disease: Science, Practice, and Policy.

The purpose of the symposium was to disseminate the growing body of evidence that the flu causes heart attacks - and that flu shots are a highly effective means of reducing the risk of heart attacks.

Doctors have long noticed that many heart attack victims will have recently had an upper respiratory tract infection.  As doctors at the Symposium pointed out, a review of the medical literature suggests that up to 35% of heart attacks are preceded by a flu-like illness.  This observation begins to make sense now that it is well-understood that inflammation is one of the triggers of the sort of vascular instability that can cause coronary arteries to suddenly become occluded - the fundamental mechanism of the heart attack.

Indeed, new research shows that infection with the influenza virus can cause all sorts of biochemical and cellular changes that can lead to inflammation in coronary artery plaques.

A recent study published in the New England Journal of Medicine indicates that receiving the influenza vaccine can significantly reduce the risk of heart disease, stroke, and all-cause mortality.

As a result of these findings, doctors at the symposium are urging cardiac specialists and other physicians to begin pushing their patients with heart disease - or an increased risk of heart disease - to receive the influenza vaccine each year.  Doing so, they estimate, can lower the risk of heart attack and stroke by as much as 25%.