- Landmark work
- Future generations
- Infections and heart attack
- Family heart study
- Grant programme
Infections and heart attack
Introduction
A team led by Professor Patrick Vallance at University College London has published research results that signalled the culmination of ten years of BHF-funded work into the relationship between heart attacks and common infections.
What they found
Professor Vallance and his team showed that if they injected an inactivated virus into a blood vessel in the back of the hand, the blood vessel behaved abnormally for some time afterwards. This discovery led them to ask the question: could the inflammation induced by common infections trigger heart attacks?
At the end of 2004 they published a paper in the New England Journal of Medicine based on research funded by the BHF, Medical Research Council and Wellcome Trust, which examined the medical records of more than 40,000 people.
They found that a common respiratory infection such as pneumonia or bronchitis, or a urinary tract infection such as cystitis, makes a person around five times more likely to suffer a heart attack and three times more likely to suffer a stroke in the first week or so after falling ill.
Impact
This study is important because it points to an interaction between the inflammation produced by a common infective illness and the likelihood of suffering a heart attack or stroke, and adds to a wealth of information derived from other BHF funded research that links the two. For example, recent studies by the BHF Professor John Deanfield showed that children who have had a recent minor infection also have a temporary abnormality of blood vessel function.
Next steps
These studies pave the way for further research into the links between inflammation and heart attacks. This may lead to new treatments aimed at breaking the link thereby reducing the risk of heart attacks and strokes in vulnerable people.