Heart Beat: Take a shot against heart disease
Take a shot against heart disease
Heart disease deaths seem to follow flu outbreaks like Jeff follows Mutt. How closely connected are they? Researchers in Houston and St. Petersburg, Russia, compared weekly deaths from heart disease "" all confirmed by autopsy "" in St. Petersburg between 1993 and 2000. In each year, the peak of heart disease deaths coincided perfectly with the peak of flu and respiratory infections.
At the time this study was done, few people in Russia were vaccinated against the flu or were taking heart-protecting statins. Do the results apply here? Indeed, they do. In spite of aggressive vaccination campaigns, a University of Alabama study showed that barely half of people with heart disease get a yearly flu shot. That's one reason influenza remains a killer, responsible for causing more than 90,000 deaths a year by triggering heart attacks and strokes.