BIRMINGHAM, Ala. – For years there has been a known association between the influenza virus and cardiovascular events like heart disease and stroke, explains University of Alabama at Birmingham cardiologist Steven Lloyd, M.D., Ph.D., FACC, associate professor of medicine and radiology.
Lloyd says anyone with cardiovascular disease should protect themself from the flu.
Of adults hospitalized due to flu during the 2010-2011 flu season, heart disease was the most commonly occurring chronic disease, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.
Lloyd, who is also president of the Alabama chapter of the American College of Cardiology, recently told Medpage Today that a new study from researchers at the University of Toronto further strengthens the common recommendation that patients with cardiovascular disease get vaccinated against the flu.
“There have been several smaller research projects in the past that led to this belief,” Lloyd said. “But this new meta-analysis is a relatively large trial with a total of more than 6,700 patients, which will be more respected in the medical community.”
The study did show a definite benefit of the flu vaccine in patients with cardiovascular disease, Lloyd says, with 1 in 56 believed to have not experienced some kind of cardiovascular event because they were vaccinated.
“The reason this association exists is not fully known, but it’s possibly due to a number of factors,” Lloyd said, noting that patients who tend to get worse flu viruses tend to be old and frail. They may get pneumonia associated with the flu or have systemic inflammation or other things that may cause plaques in the coronary arteries to rupture. If they get admitted to the hospital for treatment and get large amounts of IV fluids, it could provoke congestive heart failure.
“The flu itself could be inciting a heart attack, or it could be the treatment of the flu actually making cardiovascular issues worse,” Lloyd said. “It remains unclear.”
Lloyd also mentioned that, while there are limitations to the meta-analysis, he thinks it will prompt an interest in designing and following up with a large randomized trial to learn more on the flu and cardiovascular disease.
About UABKnown for its innovative and interdisciplinary approach to education at both the graduate and undergraduate levels, the University of Alabama at Birmingham (UAB) is an internationally renowned research university and academic medical center and the state of Alabama’s largest employer, with some 23,000 employees and an economic impact exceeding $5 billion annually on the state. The five pillars of UAB’s mission deliver knowledge that will change your world: the education of students, who are exposed to multidisciplinary learning and a new world of diversity; research, the creation of new knowledge; patient care, the outcome of ‘bench-to-bedside’ translational knowledge; service to the community at home and around the globe, from free clinics in local neighborhoods to the transformational experience of the arts; and the economic development of Birmingham and Alabama. Learn more at www.uab.edu.
EDITOR’S NOTE: The University of Alabama at Birmingham (UAB) is a separate, independent institution from the University of Alabama, which is located in Tuscaloosa. Please use University of Alabama at Birmingham on first reference and UAB on all consecutive references.
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