Respiratory infections, heart attacks and strokes

What is it about?

We investigated whether Scottish adults were more likely to have heart attacks or strokes after confirmed respiratory infections compared to other time periods using large national datasets. We found that two infections – Streptococcus pneumoniae and influenza – were linked to an increase in heart attacks for one week after infection. We also showed a rise in stroke rates in the month after these infections. Although our data suggested that other respiratory viruses might also affect heart attacks and stroke rates, the numbers of confirmed infections were too small to give conclusive results.

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