The risk of heart attack increases 6 times in patients who have received a diagnosis of influenza: the study conducted.
A recent study revealed that the flu can increase the risk of heart attack by 6 times in the first seven days following the diagnosis of the infection.
Influenza increases the risk of heart attack by 6 times in the seven days following infection
A study conducted by Annemarijin de Boer at the Julius Center for Life Sciences and Primary Care UMC in Utrecht showed that getting sick with the flu could increase the chance of a heart attack sixfold in the week following infection compared to a normal condition.
The link between flu and cardiac arrest had already been identified in the past by a Canadian study dating back to 2018, conducted by examining patients hospitalized for heart attacks.
The new survey then analyzed test results from 16 laboratories in the Netherlands covering about 40% of the population and took into account death and hospital records to get a broader and more complete picture.
Experts focused on data collected on 26,221 laboratory-confirmed cases of flu between 2008 and 2019. Of the people tested, 401 had at least one heart attack – myocardial infarction – within a year of being diagnosed with flu while the attacks total cardiacs were 419.
In this context, we found that 25 heart attacks occurred in the first seven days after contracting influenza, 271 in the year before the diagnosis and 177 in the year following the diagnosis of influenza, excluding the first seven days.
About a third of patients died – 139 of 401 – for various reasons within 12 months of being diagnosed with influenza.
Characteristics of the influenza virus
Based on the information gathered, the experts estimated that people who contracted the flu were 6.16 times more likely to have a heart attack in the seven days after diagnosis than in the previous or following year.
The flu virus is known to cause increased blood clotting. It is therefore thought that this characteristic, combined with the inflammation that is part of the body’s immune response against the virus, can cause a weakening of the atherosclerosis plaques accumulated in the arteries, stimulating them to rupture.
If a plaque ruptures, it could form a clot that blocks the normal blood flow to the heart, causing a heart attack.