A study conducted by researchers at New York City-based Mount Sinai found a link between influenza A viruses and cardiovascular disease.
It is well known that the frequency of heart attacks increases during flu season, but there was previously little evidence to link the disease to the phenomenon, according to a Feb. 9 health system news release. With this new study, published Feb. 9 in Immunity, researchers have not only linked the two but have found some of the mechanisms behind influenza A’s effect on the heart.
The team studied autopsies of 35 hospitalized patients who died of influenza. They found more than 85% had at least one significant cardiovascular comorbidity, and the majority had multiple comorbidities. These included hypertension, atherosclerosis and cardiac fibrosis.
The team found that a novel set of white blood cells becomes infected in the lungs, and after traveling to the heart, it produces a large amount of Type 1 interferon. This triggers the death of cardiomyocytes. In mouse models, a modified mRNA treatment could mitigate cardiac damage following the infection.
“These findings offer great promise for the development of new therapies, which are desperately needed since there are currently no viable clinical options to prevent cardiac damage,” Filip Swirski, PhD, director of the Cardiovascular Research Institute at the Icahn School of Medicine at Mount Sinai and the senior author of the study, said in the release.
Influenza A viruses are responsible for an estimated 1 billion infections globally each year.
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