Flu can be hard on the heart

Influenza can trigger deadly heart attacks, researchers have reported in a study that supports what experts have long believed -- flu can kill people even if they do not die directly from the flu.

The report shows that the seasonal virus can worsen heart disease and that deaths from heart attacks and heart disease are far more common during flu season. This can add up to 90,000 extra deaths a year in the United States alone, said Dr. Mohammad Madjid of the University of Texas Health Science Center at Houston, who led the study.

Writing online April 17 in the European Heart Journal, the researchers said their findings added to a growing list of reasons why people should get annual flu shots. They also said people with heart disease should stick to their medications religiously.

Madjid and colleagues at the Influenza Research Institute in St. Petersburg, Russia, studied autopsy reports on people who died of heart disease in that city from 1993 to 2000.

“This was a population where only a small minority were receiving flu vaccines or statin drugs, so this enabled us to see what happened naturally in the absence of these medicines,” Madjid said.

They found that 11,892 people died of heart attacks and 23,000 died of chronic heart disease. Deaths from heart attacks increased by a third in flu epidemic weeks compared with non-epidemic weeks; the chances of dying of chronic heart disease increased by a tenth.

For a summary of the study, go to eurheartj.oxfordjournals.org/cgi/content/abstract/ehm035v1.