Flu and pneumonia vaccines may reduce heart failure patients’ risk of dangerous respiratory infections, a new review suggests.

The researchers reviewed studies published from January 1990 to July 2016. These studies suggested that flu and pneumonia vaccines seem to help protect people with heart failure from life-threatening respiratory infections. People older than 65 with heart failure may benefit more from high-dose vaccination, the researchers said.

“Vaccination represents a low-cost intervention that may be able to prevent the significant disease, death and cost associated with heart failure,” said senior author Dr Robert Mentz, an assistant professor of medicine at Duke University School of Medicine in Durham, NC.

But, the evidence is still limited, Mentz’s team said. That’s because most vaccination clinical trials either haven’t included heart failure patients or haven’t looked at the impact of vaccines in heart failure patients.

Read more at www.upi.com