Gity Sufai has ended up in the ER six times in as many years with chest pain so severe, she feared she was having a heart attack.

Now the 66-year-old Richmond Hill woman, who suffers from coronary artery disease, isn’t taking any chances. In addition to taking medication for high blood pressure and high cholesterol, changing her diet and exercising, she gets the flu shot to lessen her risk of a heart attack or stroke.

According to a study published Tuesday in the Journal of the American Medical Association, the chance of someone in their mid-60s suffering a major cardiac event such as a heart attack, stroke, heart failure or cardiac-related death are cut by 36 per cent if they have had a flu shot within the previous year.

And if they have already suffered a heart attack, their chances of suffering another major cardiac event within a year are 55 per cent lower if they get the vaccine.

“I’m doing it for prevention. I want to play it safe,” said Sufai, who works as an account administrator in a marketing and research company.

Her cardiologist, Dr. Jacob Udell at Women’s College Hospital, led the study and not surprisingly advised that she get the flu shot.

His study was actually a meta-analysis of six clinical trials done around the world, going back to the early ’90s and looking at heart health of people who received the flu vaccine.

The trials included more than 6,700 participants. About one third had a history of heart disease and the remainder had risk factors for heart disease, for example, high blood pressure, high cholesterol, diabetes or prediabetes, lack of physical activity and stress. With a mean age of 67, the study participants’ health status reflects that of the general population in that age group, Udell said.

He pointed out that other studies have suggested patients who come down with the flu are at higher risk of heart attacks, heart failure and stroke. So it made sense to explore whether the flu shot could cut that risk, he said.

It’s believed that when people mount an immune response to the flu, inflammation destabilizes previous stable artery plaques — the buildup of cholesterol in the arteries of the heart and brain. Those unstable plaques can then block blood flow, resulting in a heart attack or stroke.

“The vaccine we propose protects this adverse process from occurring at a higher rate compared with those without flu vaccine,” Udell said.

More research is necessary to confirm the theory, said Udell, who is now organizing a prospective clinical trial to follow heart disease patients for up to 12 months after receiving the flu shot.

Dr. Stephen Kopecky, a cardiologist at the Mayo Clinic and president of the American Society for Preventive Cardiology, said more research is a good idea. He would like to see more information about who gets heart-health benefits and who doesn’t from a flu shot.

Still, he noted that the smaller clinical trials that were used in this study are part of the reason the American Heart Association advises that people get the flu shot.

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“The data is real. In fact, I tell my patients, ‘Why don’t you get a flu shot this year. I want you to get it, not because I don’t want you to get the flu, but I don’t want you to get a heart attack,’ ” he says.

“That really opens their eyes. They say, ‘I didn’t know that, I’ll get one then.’ ”

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