NEW YORK (Reuters Health) - Getting a seasonal flu shot may do more than just prevent influenza. It may also lower a person's risk of heart problems, suggests a new study. 
 
 Researchers who took a fresh look at previously collected data found people who got flu shots were less likely to have heart problems during the next year than those who were given a fake shot, or placebo. That was especially true for people with recent heart troubles. 
 
 "If there are those out there who for whatever reason don't get the flu shot or don't feel that they need it … this is one more reason why they might help," Dr. Jacob Udell said. 
 
 Udell is the study's lead author from the University of Toronto's Women's College Hospital and Peter Munk Cardiac Center at Toronto General Hospital. 
 
 Previous reports have shown people who come down with the flu have an increased risk over the near term of having a stroke, heart failure and heart disease, he told Reuters Health. 
 
 It's thought the infection triggers inflammation throughout the body and can aggravate existing heart problems. 
 
 For the new study, the researchers searched several databases for trials that compared people who received the flu shot to others who did not. 
 
 They found five published studies and one unpublished study that included 6,735 participants. Participants were in their late 60s, on average. A little more than a third had a history of heart problems. 
 
 Overall, 3 percent of those who received a flu shot went on to have a heart problem including a heart attack or stroke within a year. That compared to about 5 percent of those in the placebo groups. 
 
 Among those with recent heart disease, the difference was more dramatic. 
 
 The researchers found about 10 percent of participants with a recent heart problem went on to have another after they received the flu shot. That compared to about 23 percent in the placebo groups. 
 
 "Clearly if you had a recent heart attack our research is showing … they're going to derive the most protection," Udell said. 
 
 "I think it adds a stronger bit of evidence to the recommendations that are currently being made," Dr. David Frid said. 
 
 Frid, a preventative cardiologist at the Cleveland Clinic in Ohio, was not involved with the new study. 
 
 "From the clinical perspective, it gives us more supporting data to say to our patients, ‘Here's a recent study confirming what we've been telling you that if you have heart disease you should be getting the flu vaccine,'" he told Reuters Health. 
 
 Dr. Kathleen Neuzil from the global health nonprofit organization PATH in Seattle wrote an editorial accompanying the new study in The Journal of the American Medical Association. 
 
 She cautions that the findings can't say the flu shot prevents heart problems. However, Neuzil writes that the known complications of flu among older people warrant the vaccine's use. 
 
 SOURCE: bit.ly/JOTmp1 The Journal of the American Medical Association, online October 22, 2013. ||||| Get a flu shot to ward off a case of influenza, and as an added bonus you’ll reduce your risk of a heart attack, stroke or other type of unpleasant “cardiovascular event,” a new study finds. 
 
 For some time, researchers have suspected that flu shots can protect heart health as well as respiratory health. They have tested this theory in a handful of clinical trials, and the results have been mixed. 
 
 Now an international group of researchers has compiled data from a dozen randomized clinical trials to see if they could get a clearer answer to the question. What they found was “a consistent association between influenza vaccination and a lower risk of cardiovascular events,” according to their report in Wednesday’s edition of the Journal of the American Medical Assn. 
 
 Five of the trials the team examined were published in peer-reviewed journals and compared a flu vaccine to a placebo vaccine or other type of control. In those trials, 3,238 patients got a real vaccine and 95 of them – 2.9% – went on to experience “a major adverse cardiovascular event,” the JAMA report said. For the sake of comparison, 3,231 patients in those trials got a placebo or control and 151 of them – or 4.7% – later had a cardiovascular event, according to the study. 
 
 That translates into a 36% reduced risk of a serious heart problem simply by getting a flu shot – something everyone over the age of 6 months should be doing anyway. Based on these figures, the researchers calculated that one death or serious illness due to heart trouble could be prevented by vaccinating 58 additional people. 
 
 Three of the trials the researchers examined focused on patients with coronary artery disease. Some of those patients had recently experienced acute coronary syndrome, and they benefited the most by getting a flu shot. Patients who got the vaccine were 55% less likely to have a serious heart problem than patients in the control groups, the researchers found. The team calculated that for these patients, only eight additional people would need to get a flu shot in order to prevent one case of death or serious illness. 
 
 When the researchers considered cardiovascular deaths on their own, they found no statistically significant difference between the 1.3% of people who died after getting a flu shot and the 1.7% who died after being assigned to a placebo or control group. 
 
 Experts aren’t sure why the flu increases the risk of serious heart problems, but they have their theories. It may cause a plaque that has built up inside the arteries to rupture, or it may cause the heart muscle to become inflamed, among other possibilities. Knowing what’s going on inside the body would help figure out who would get an extra boost from a flu shot, and why. 
 
 Even with those uncertainties, the conclusion that a flu shot can protect patients with heart disease is convincing, according to an editorial that accompanies the study in JAMA. 
 
 “The estimate of 1.7 major cardiovascular events prevented for every 100 persons with cardiovascular disease vaccinated is plausible and would represent a significant public health benefit,” wrote Dr. Kathleen Neuzil, a vaccine expert at PATH, a Seattle-based nonprofit that focuses on global health. 
 
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 Your Flu Shot May Also Help Your Heart 
 
 Study found one-third lower risk of problems including heart attacks in vaccinated people 
 
 
 
 WebMD News from HealthDay 
 
 By Serena Gordon 
 
 HealthDay Reporter 
 
 TUESDAY, Oct. 22 (HealthDay News) -- If avoiding an achy, feverish week or so laid up with the flu doesn't motivate you to get a flu shot, a new study linking flu shots to a lower incidence of heart disease might persuade you to roll up your sleeve. 
 
 People in the study who got flu shots were one-third less likely to have heart issues, such as heart failure or a heart attack, compared to those who opted against vaccination. The flu shot was associated with an even greater reduction of heart problems if someone had heart disease to start with, according to the study. 
 
 "This is one further piece of evidence to convince patients to go out and get their flu shot," said the study's lead author, Dr. Jacob Udell, a cardiology and clinician scientist, at Women's College Hospital at the University of Toronto. 
 
 Results of the study are published in the Oct. 23/30 issue of the Journal of the American Medical Association. 
 
 Past research has suggested a link between the influenza virus -- the virus that causes the flu -- and an increased risk of heart events. And, conversely, previous research done on the influenza vaccine has suggested an association between the vaccine and a reduced risk of heart issues. But, most of these studies were small and none looked specifically for a heart-protective effect from the influenza vaccine. 
 
 The flu vaccine is currently recommended for everyone over 6 months of age in the United States, according to the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. The vaccine is highly recommended for certain groups, including people with heart disease. 
 
 To get an idea of how well the vaccine might protect against heart events, the researchers reviewed all of the clinical trials done on the influenza vaccine from 1947 through mid-2013. 
 
 The investigators included six randomized clinical trials comprising nearly 7,000 people in their analysis. The average age of the study participants was 67, and about half were women. Just over 36 percent had a history of cardiac disease. 
 
 The researchers found that those who received an influenza vaccine were 36 percent less likely to have a heart event than those who hadn't had a vaccine. 
 
 When the researchers looked at just the three trials that included people with recent heart disease, they found an even greater potential protective effect. People with recent heart problems who got the flu vaccine were 55 percent less likely to have another event compared to those who didn't get the vaccine. 
 
 The risk of dying from cardiovascular disease was nearly 20 percent lower for those who received the flu vaccine versus those who hadn't, according to the study. 
 
 Udell said this study wasn't designed to prove that influenza vaccine can lower heart disease risk, but he said that the researchers believe they've come close to proving cause and effect without conducting a clinical trial specifically designed to look for a protective effect from the flu vaccine. ||||| Breaking News Emails Get breaking news alerts and special reports. The news and stories that matter, delivered weekday mornings. 
 
 / Updated 
 
 Much of the influenza virus circulating in the United States has mutated and this year’s vaccine doesn’t provide good protection against it, federal health officials are warning. 
 
 Flu season’s barely starting, but most cases are being caused by a strain called H3N2 this year, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention said in a health warning issued to doctors Wednesday night. 
 
 The flu vaccine protects against three or four strains of flu — there’s always a mix of flu viruses going around — and H3N2 is one of them. But the strain of H3N2 infecting most people has mutated and only about half of cases match the vaccine, CDC said. 
 
 Flu viruses do this all the time. The mutations are called “drift” and vaccines, formulated months in advance, often don't protect well against drifted viruses although they may provide a little of what's called cross protection. 
 
 "We are recommending strongly still that people who haven’t been vaccinated get vaccinated. Every year vaccine is the best way to protect yourself against the flu," the CDC's flu expert Dr. Joe Bresee told NBC News. 
 
 “Though reduced, this cross-protection might reduce the likelihood of severe outcomes such as hospitalization and death,” CDC said in a health advisory to doctors. “And the vaccine still protects against half the circulating H3N2,as well as H1N1 flu and the B strains. 
 
 "Cross-protection might reduce the likelihood of severe outcomes such as hospitalization and death." 
 
 So CDC sticks with its advice that everyone six months and older should get a flu vaccine every year. 
 
 But because even vaccinated people may be more vulnerable than usual, CDC is reminding doctors they can and should use two antiviral drugs to treat flu and in some cases to prevent it. They’re called Tamiflu and Relenza, and giving them to people within a day or two of infection can keep them out of the hospital and reduce how long they’re sick. 
 
 For people in nursing homes and other institutions where flu is a big danger, doctors should think about using the drugs to prevent infection, CDC said. 
 
 “An influenza outbreak is likely when at least two residents are ill within 72 hours, and at least one has laboratory confirmed influenza,” CDC said. Staff and residents alike can take the drugs daily for at least two weeks and for at least a week after the last known case of flu, CDC says. 
 
 “As of November 22, influenza activity has increased slightly in most parts of the United States. Surveillance data indicate that influenza A (H3N2) viruses have predominated so far, with lower levels of detection of influenza B viruses and even less detection of H1N1 viruses,” CDC said. 
 
 “As of November 22, influenza activity has increased slightly in most parts of the United States." 
 
 Last season, it was H1N1 flu that affected the most people. 
 
 Flu usually hits the very young and the very old the hardest. Depending on the season, it kills anywhere between 4,000 and 50,000 people a year in the United States. 
 
 This year, the CDC expects up to 159 million flu vaccine doses to be available. Flu season usually peaks in the United States in January and February. 
 
 Why not just make a new flu vaccine? It takes too long, Bresee says. "It’s tempting to think that we can make a new vaccine for the strains that pop up late in the year like this, but flu vaccines take a long time to make," he said. "We decide what is going to be in this flu vaccine for this season in the U.S. way back in February. It takes about six months for the vaccine to be made." 
 
 That's why CDC and the vaccine makers are working to come up with better flu vaccines that can be made faster, and eventually, for vaccines that could protect against all strains of flu.
– This year's public service announcements urging people to get a flu shot might have just gotten some extra ammo: New research suggests the shots not only help ward off the flu but protect the heart as well, reports the LA Times. An analysis of previous studies found that 3% of people who got the flu vaccine went on to have some kind of "cardiovascular event," as opposed to 5% who got a placebo, according to the study published in the Journal of the American Medical Association. That is, those who got flu shots reduced their risk by about a third of having a heart attack. "If there are those out there who for whatever reason don't get the flu shot or don't feel that they need it … this is one more reason why they might help," the lead researcher tells Reuters. So what's going on? WebMD explains a leading theory: The flu triggers an inflammatory immune response in the body, and that inflammation could spell trouble for arteries, especially ones already compromised. If the shot keeps the flu away, all that is avoided. The researchers say those who already have heart disease should be especially vigilant about getting the yearly flu vaccine.