With frequent ARI, the risk of heart attack increases 17 times

Scientists from Australia advise in acute respiratory infections to closely monitor the state of the cardiovascular system - and especially for older people.

Every year the number of people who die from myocardial infarction is steadily growing. Even in highly civilized countries, where patients with heart disease receive effective and timely treatment, every eighth patient dies.

According to the latest research of Australian scientists, ARVI and influenza increase the risk of heart attack more than 17 times.

In the experiment, almost six hundred patients from the clinical centers of Australia were involved, who were placed on inpatient treatment in connection with the infarction. The specialists found out whether the patients with acute respiratory viral infection, flu, bronchitis or sinusitis had been ill before , and how often it happened. At the same time, all participants in the experiment were required to undergo coronary angiography.

The results of the experiment were not very optimistic: in general, 17% of patients with myocardial infarction had signs of respiratory illness less than 7 days before the acute pathology. At least 20% of patients had SARS for a month before the onset of a heart attack.

Comparing the information received with the general statistics, experts were able to calculate that infectious diseases in the form of acute respiratory viral infection or influenza increase the risk of developing myocardial infarction by 17 times. And even if you take into account only mild catarrhal diseases, the result is no less depressing - the risk rises by about 13 times.

"Even if we consider that infectious diseases of the upper parts of the respiratory system rarely leave behind negative consequences, unlike pneumonia or bronchitis, but they are diagnosed much more often. If doctors pay attention to the existence of a relationship between a cold and an acute cardiovascular pathology, it will help prevent many complications and even deaths, "says one of the authors of the project Lorcan Rouane.

Dr. Thomas Buckley confirms that the experiment explains a lot - for example, the fact that in Australia, a larger number of patients with a heart attack enter treatment in the winter. Just in winter local hospitals are filled with patients with viral infections and colds: it turns out that each of these people already has a predisposition to the development of acute coronary insufficiency.

"Probably, with ARVI or influenza, the inflammatory reaction on one hand and the growing propensity to thrombosis on the other hand play a negative role. The impact of microbial toxic decomposition products on blood vessels and heart tissues is also of additional importance, "the scientists say.

The main conclusion from the experiment can be described as follows: for any cold or ARVI, as well as within a few weeks after such diseases, it is necessary to carefully monitor the work of the heart.