Vaccinated patients admitted to the ICU spent four fewer days in the ICU than unvaccinated patients. Among people admitted to the hospital with the flu, those vaccinated were 59% less likely to be admitted to the ICU.
Adults who received the vaccine were 37% less likely to be hospitalized for the flu and 82% less likely to be admitted to the ICU because of it. Lately, studies have been able to show that not only is the vaccine effective at protecting the general population and the most vulnerable age groups (over 65 and under 2) from severe cases of the flu, but it's also protective against cardiovascular mortality as well, especially among the high-risk population. While that might not sound great - especially in comparison to the highly effective mRNA COVID-19 vaccines - it's enough to significantly lower the risk of severe illness in most people. On average, it's effective at preventing infection 40% of the time. In short, the added stress on the cardiovascular system could be overwhelming to an already weakened heart muscle.īecause influenza viruses are constantly mutating, scientists alter the vaccine each year to match the likely prevalent strands. The added stressors make plaque within your arteries more vulnerable to rupture, causing a blockage that cuts off oxygen to the heart or brain and results in heart attacks or strokes, respectively.Īdditionally, non-cardiac complications from the viral illness, including pneumonia and respiratory failure, can make heart failure symptoms or heart arrhythmia much worse. The increased activity can also cause a traffic jam of sorts, leading to blood clots, elevated blood pressure and even swelling or scarring within the heart. When you're sick, you can typically feel the effects of these "combat zones" in the swelling, tenderness, pain, weakness and sometimes redness and increased temperature of your joints, muscles and lymph nodes. Inflammation occurs when your body's "first responders" - white blood cells and what they produce in order to protect you - convene in an area and get to work fighting an infection, bacteria or virus. 
The reason influenza stresses the heart and vascular system so much has to do with the body's inflammatory response to the infection.
One in eight patients, or 12.5%, admitted to the hospital with influenza experienced a cardiovascular event, with 31% of those requiring intensive care and 7% dying as a result of the event, another study found. Another study looking at 90,000 lab-confirmed influenza infections showed a strikingly similar rate of 11.7% experiencing an acute cardiovascular event. 
In one study looking at 336,000 hospital admissions for flu, 11.5% experienced a serious cardiac event.Patients are six times more likely to experience a heart attack the week after influenza infection than they are at any point during the year prior or the year after the infection.Cardiovascular deaths and influenza epidemics spike around the same time.The virus' effects on the heart have historically been harder to parse out, in part because many patients already have a known predisposition to cardiac events and in part because the cardiac event often occurs weeks after the onset of the flu.īut here's what recent research has shown:
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It's well-known that the flu can lead to significant respiratory symptoms such as pneumonia, bronchitis and bacterial infection of the lungs. "That's dangerous, considering people with heart conditions are particularly vulnerable to influenza-related heart complications, whether they've reached retirement age or not." Priyanka Bhugra, internal medicine specialist at Houston Methodist and lead author of the JAHA article. "It seems that younger Americans with high-risk conditions have not gotten the same memo that their older counterparts have received about the importance of getting the influenza vaccine," says Dr. The flu vaccination rate for American adults who are less than 65 years of age and have heart disease is less than 50%, compared to 80% in older adults with heart disease. According to a Houston Methodist review published in the Journal of the American Heart Association, Americans with heart disease continue to have low vaccination rates every year despite higher rates of death and complications from influenza. Probably not, if annual influenza vaccination rates are any indication, especially if you're under the age of 65.
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