subject: Study Claims Associated With Fewer Risks Of Heart Attack [print this page] Having annual flu shots may reduce the risk of heart attacks and also if a shot is given earlier in a season it offers much more protection claims a new British study, which is reported on Monday, Sept 20 (Health day news).
A.Niroshan Siriwardena, a professor of primary and prehospital health care at university of Lincoln said, for those who are vaccinated the previous year the risk of getting heart attack has been reduced by 19 percent.
The study that was made is based on a review of 78,000 medical records of people in England and Wales, which drew criticism from U.S experts. Among them 16,000 were heart attack patients and 8,500 0f them were vaccinated, which criticized some of the U.S experts.
However, associate director of the division of cardiac intervention at Lenox Hill Hospital, DR. Kirk Garratt said it was 19 percent fewer heart attacks patients vaccinated previous year and also there was no reduction of 19 percent among the vaccinated patients.
He even added if so is the case a flu shot prevents 19 percent of heart attacks, it would have been noticed previously.
Not only him, but also Dr. Harlan Krumholz, who is also an expert and director of the Yale-New Haven Hospital Centre for Outcomes Research and Evaluation at Yale Medical School suggested the same flaws.
Krumholz also said that it is very much true that heart attacks and flu vaccine has a relation, via referring the previous research. At the same time he claimed that no relevant proof is there to the fact that there is a reduction in 19 percent of the heart attacks.
When Siriwardena was questioned about this criticism he said the rate of heart attacks in vaccinated is compared to that of unvaccinated patients, thus to get an idea of other risk factors.
Siriwardena even added the results which we expressed are about the risk of heart attacks rather than rates of vaccination between the people who had or did not have a heart attack.
Though Garratt was not satisfied with his answer and even said his statement was incorrect.
Garratt said the study concentrated on measuring the rates of vaccination of heart attack patients with those who didn't have one rather than measuring the risk of heart attacks in vaccinated and non-vaccinated people. He added we may look for a connection between the two but coming to a conclusion just basing on this would not be a good option.
In defense, Siriwardena added we just found an association rather than the cause and the effect. Not only this, we have found reduction of heart attack and early vaccination related.
Krumholz, a cardiology professor at Yale, everyone are being requested to get vaccinated in the U.S Centre for Disease Control and Prevention.
This study definitely takes time as we are still encouraging people to get vaccinated. The recent findings say that the vaccinations have a positive effect on the heart attacks.
Krumholz even added flu shots have been recommended to both type of people either having or merely to develop a risk of heart attack by The American Heart Association and The Association of American Cardiologists.
Garratt added the theory of benefits of flu shots is that an infection can have the risk to break the plaque inside the arteries that causes a heart attack. The hardened fats and other substances that can build on arteries are nothing but Plaques that blocks the blood flow.
Krumholz added Flu on the other hand can increase the inflammation levels thus in turn raising the risk of heart attack.
Covering almost 5 percent of England and Wales population that had a medical record database was the info taken that was published in the month of September. The controls as well as the study cases were forty in number and had a medical record of five years even before the beginning of the study.
The study was proved to be successful by being matched with 16,000 heart attack patients or even by sex, age and other data that could have an effect on 63,000 controls. Not only this, every heart attack case had four controls. Then the data was also assessed with other factors that may have an effect and also the number of visits to the doctor is also considered.
In fact, after this the study even focused whether there is a chance of prevention to pneumococcal pneumonia but is not successful in doing so.
Krumholz supported saying pneumococcal infections being rare comparatively; any impact on vaccination would be always have to be diluted in smaller numbers only.
Study Claims Associated With Fewer Risks Of Heart Attack
