Cold & Flu Archive

The pros and cons of the high-dose vaccine, and tips to protect yourself from infection this season.

If you are at risk of severe flu complications, start on antiviral medications as soon as you feel sick.

By middle age, influenza is a familiar but unwelcome visitor to most of us. And we know generally what to do: Drink fluids, rest, and within a week or so, we are back to our usual activities.

Some over-the-counter cold and flu medicines (including DayQuil and Tylenol Cold and Flu) combine the decongestant phenylephrine and acetaminophen, a common pain reliever. But the combination of those two drugs may boost the risk of side effects that are potentially serious for people with heart disease.

As described in a letter to The New England Journal of Medicine, when healthy volunteers took 10 milligrams (mg) of phenylephrine in combination with 1,000 mg of acetaminophen, their blood levels of phenylephrine rose up to four times higher than when they took the same dose of phenylephrine alone.

Getting the flu shot may do more than protect against the flu and its lingering aftermath. It also lowers a person’s odds of a having heart attack, stroke, heart failure, or other major cardiac event—including death—by about a third over the following year. What’s the connection between flu and cardiovascular problems? The body mounts an impressive immune response against the flu. That causes a lot of inflammation, which destabilizes cholesterol-filled plaque inside blood vessels. Plaque rupture can cause a heart attack or stroke. Experts recommend a flu shot for everyone six months of age and older. It is especially important for those who face the highest risk of complications: young children; adults over age 50; those of all ages with serious health conditions such as cardiovascular disease, asthma or other lung disease, liver or kidney disease, or diabetes; and those who care for young children or other individuals at high risk of flu complications.

Beginning in March, 2013, reports started to come out of Eastern China that a new “bird flu” virus was loose and causing infections in humans. The new virus is called H7N9. Should we in the U.S. be worried? Neither I nor anyone I know can give a confident answer to that question. So far the news is reassuring. A report from the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), and another from a team from China in this week’s New England Journal of Medicine, indicate that so far the new H7N9 virus has not clearly spread from one person to another, and has not spread outside of Eastern China. Even so, every public health agency around the world is keeping a close eye on China. That’s because a virus that cannot spread easily from one person to another can change or swap genes—and suddenly be capable of spreading easily.

To get or stay healthy, many people focus on exercising more, eating better, or quitting smoking. Getting recommended vaccinations is another relatively simple strategy for health that an alarming number of Americans overlook. Vaccination isn’t just for kids. Adults should get immunized against infectious agents that cause the flu, pneumonia, whooping cough (pertussis), shingles (herpes zoster), and more. The latest schedule for adult immunization has been published in the Annals of Internal Medicine. It now recommends adding a second anti-pneumonia vaccine for people with compromised immune systems. It also says that all adults age 65 and older should get the tetanus, diphtheria, and pertussis (Tdap) vaccine, as should pregnant women with each pregnancy. When it comes to adult immunization, Americans aren’t doing very well. One-third of older Americans don’t get the pneumococcal vaccine, 84% don’t get the shingles vaccine, and 87% don’t get the tetanus, diphtheria, and pertussis vaccine. In addition to protecting yourself from an infectious disease, immunization also protects others.

It’s shaping up to be a banner year for the flu. The City of Boston just declared a public health emergency, with 700 cases of the flu reported so far this season, compared to just 70 cases last year. Four Boston residents, all elderly, have died. A similar spike in flu is happening all around the country. According to the federal Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, this year’s flu season is shaping up to be a bad one. By the end of December, the flu was widespread in 41 states. The CDC says that more than 2,000 people have been hospitalized so far; scores of adults have died, as well as 18 children. One way to keep from getting the flu is to get the flu vaccine. (Almost everyone age 6 months and older should be vaccinated.) If you haven’t already done this, it isn’t too late. For more information about the flu, visit Harvard Health Publication’s Flu Resource Center at www.health.harvard.edu/flu

The holiday season gets all the hype at this time of year, but the flu season needs your attention as well. It has come early this year—the earliest since 2003, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC)—and is expected to be severe. In the last month, new cases of flu in the U.S. have gone from a few hundred a week to more than a thousand a week. Forty-eight states and Puerto Rico have already seen lab-confirmed cases of the virus, and five children have died from it. Getting vaccinated and washing your hands often are your best bets against getting flu. The vaccine isn’t an anti-flu guarantee, but it can reduce your risk by up to 80%. Yet barely one-third of Americans have been vaccinated against the flu so far this year. Why aren’t more people getting a flu shot?

The latest hubbub about taking zinc to shorten a cold is media hype at its finest. The review that sparked the media storm on zinc and colds says there’s a lot more to be done before recommending taking zinc for the common cold. The negative side effects of zinc are also worth considering.

Does echinacea, the popular natural cold remedy, really work? It depends on what you mean by “work.” Results reported in today’s Annals of Internal Medicine found that echinacea may reduce the length of a weeklong cold by 7 to 10 hours and make symptoms a little less onerous. That can’t be characterized as a major effect, so many people may figure that […]