Flu Shot May Reduce Risk Of Major Cardiac Event By 50 Percent

(Newsroom America) -- Getting a flu shot may not only protect you from getting sick, it might also prevent heart disease, according to new research.

Two Toronto-based researchers presented studies at the 2012 Canadian Cardiovascular Congress which found that the influenza vaccine could be an important treatment for maintaining heart health and warding off cardiovascular events such as strokes and heart attacks.

Dr. Jacob Udell, a cardiologist at Women's College Hospital and the University of Toronto, and his team from the TIMI Study Group and Network for Innovation in Clinical Research looked at published clinical trials on this subject, dating back to the 1960s.

"For those who had the flu shot, there was a pretty strong risk reduction," says Dr. Udell.

The flu vaccine provided an approximate 50 per cent reduction in the risk of a major cardiac event (heart attack, stroke, or cardiac death) compared with placebo after one year of follow-up. A similar trend was seen for the flu vaccine reducing death from any cause (approximately 40 per cent).

The influenza vaccine reduced cardiovascular events and cardiovascular death in people with or without heart disease.

The combined studies examined a total of 3,227 patients, with an almost equal split between patients with and without established heart disease. Half of the participants were randomly assigned to receive flu vaccine and those that did not typically received a placebo vaccine.