In a study of over 57,000 patients, Taiwanese researchers found influenza virus is indeed a risk factor for atrial fibrillation, and that the standard flu vaccine can to some extent prevent complications from AF, including stroke, according to a HeartRhythm paper.
AF, most common cardiac arrhythmia seen in clinical practice, causes irregular and abnormally fast heart rates in patients. Additionally, AF is associated with a five-fold increased risk of stroke. The causes of AF are not well understood, but research suggests that it could be related to autonomic nervous system inflammation impacted by flu virus, according to the authors.
The researchers used patients who did not have the flu and had not been vaccinated as a control group. They found patients who had flu and were vaccinated had a risk of AF similar to that of the control group, while unvaccinated flu patients had an 18 percent higher risk of AF.
"Although the flu vaccine is already recommended for many patient groups, this study suggests that there are even more potential public health benefits of the vaccine," Nishant Verma, MD, and Bradley P. Knight, MD, of Northwestern University's department of medicine in Chicago, wrote in an accompanying editorial. "The results of this study beg the question as to whether the acute treatment of the influenza infection itself, or addressing the inflammatory response associated with infection, may help prevent secondary episodes of AF."
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