Influenza vaccine protects heart and lungs
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The flu is not good for the heart. It increases cardiovascular events and, inevitably, also deaths. But in full-blown cases of heart failure, those who are vaccinated face less risk. To evaluate the benefits of seasonal vaccination on heart patients is a large international study conducted by McMaster University in Hamilton according to which immunization reduces cases of pneumonia by 42%, hospital admissions by 16% and deaths by 20%. As we know, the flu virus can act as a “precipitating factor” for various pathologies, and during flu peaks the vaccine also helps to protect against the most common cardiovascular complications, such as heart attacks and strokes, and represents a valid ally in tackling the winter.
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Heart failure
Heart failure represents a major global health burden. It has been estimated that the number of patients with heart failure has almost doubled over the years, going from 33.5 million in 1990 to 64.3 million in 2017. In Italy alone, cardiovascular diseases are responsible for 44% of all deaths and those who survive a heart attack become chronically ill. Now these results are being published in the December issue of The Lancet show once again how important the flu shot is to hearts around the world.
“Although the flu vaccine did not reduce the number of fatal heart attacks and strokes in absolute terms, it did significantly reduce all-cause hospitalizations and pneumonia,” explains Professor Mark Loeb, an infectious disease specialist at the McMaster Faculty of Health Sciences in Hamilton, recalling how during the flu peaks that occurred between 2015 and 2021 it “carried out an important additional protective action”.
I study
The study involved 5129 heart failure patients living in ten countries – in Asia, the Middle East and Africa, places where there is no flu campaign – who randomly received the vaccine or placebo between June 2, 2015 and on November 21, 2021. The volunteers were followed up for a year and all those who contracted Covid were specifically excluded. “The vaccine reduced all-cause hospitalization as well as community-acquired pneumonia, and the reduction in hospitalizations was due precisely to the vaccine’s protective effect on heart failure,” write the Mark Loeb Research Group researchers.
Flu deaths
Influenza causes excess mortality every year. And “these data confirm what we already partially knew and see in our departments,” says Dr Joseph Musumeci, director of Cardiology at the Mauriziano hospital in Turin. “Even if the global data is neutral, it is important to spread the message that the flu vaccine concretely protects against adverse cardiovascular events, especially frail patients and all heart patients”.
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The influenza virus can in fact “cause direct damage to the myocardium resulting, even if very rarely, in myocarditis. But in the case of pre-existing diseases, it can induce a sudden worsening, thus precipitating a situation in which cardiac function was already compromised – explains Musumeci -. Trivially, even just the increase in heart rate and temperature put the heart under stress. If we then add dehydration, the lack of taking cardioactive drugs or bad kidney function, the picture immediately becomes serious “.
Another aspect concerns “myocardial infarction and strokes which can be caused by the inflammatory cascade effect caused by the influenza virus”.
This year’s viruses
Four flu viruses are expected this winter which, according to the WHO, will circulate more and be more aggressive. An incidence of 4.8 cases per thousand assisted already emerges from the first epidemiological bulletin of the Istituto Superiore di Sanità, which is already considerable if we consider the out-of-season temperatures of this month. And the virological surveillance bulletin will also start from Friday 25 November.
The anti-flu campaign has already been launched throughout Italy and remains recommended from 6 months to 6 years, as well as for the Over 60s. “But all those who have a history of heart disease, even with early onset – concludes the cardiologist – should get the vaccine flu shot regardless of age”.
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