Why the annual flu jab could help people with heart problems live longer

Getting an annual flu jab could help people with heart problems to live longer, a new study suggests.

Influenza is serious or even fatal for patients with heart failure because they already have poor circulation and infection can exacerbate symptoms.

Heart and circulatory disease causes 160,000 deaths each year, but although the NHS recommends the flu jab for people with heart problems, it was unknown it it was having an impact on death rates.

Researchers analysed data from 134,048 patients with newly diagnosed heart failure over a 12-year period and found an annual jab it reduced early death by 18 per cent.

Getting a flu shot less than once per year but more than not at all was associated with a 13 percent reduced risk of all-cause death and an 8 percent reduced risk of cardiovascular death.

There benefit was found to be greatest if people had the vaccination during September and October in comparison with November and December.

Lead study author Dr Daniel Modin, an investigator from the University of Copenhagen in Denmark, said that while the research only looked at patients with newly-diagnosed heart failure, the protection was likely benefit all patients with heart failure.

“Recent studies have indicated that the influenza vaccination coverage of patients with heart failure is inadequate,” Dr Modin.

“I hope that our study can assist in making physicians and cardiologists who care for patients with heart failure aware of how important influenza vaccination is for their patients.

“Influenza vaccination may be regarded as a standard treatment in heart failure similar to medications."

There are around seven million people living with heart and circulatory disease in the Britain, split evenly between men and women. More than half a million people in the UK are living with heart failure.

However the number of people receiving the winter flu jab has plummeted this year, Public Health England figures show, after surgeries struggled to get supplies.

For the last week of November the vaccine uptake for over-65s was 65.4 per cent compared with 69.1 per cent at the same point last year.

The research was published in the journal Circulation.