Vaccinations Archive

Heart Health

Flu shot may lower risk of early death in people with high blood pressure

Updated December 1, 2019

In the journals

Need another reason to get your annual flu shot? It could protect you from a fatal heart attack or stroke if you suffer from high blood pressure, according to research presented at a 2019 joint conference of the European Society of Cardiology Congress and the World Congress of Cardiology.

Previous research has found that the inflammation from a flu infection can trigger a heart attack or stroke, and people with high blood pressure are especially at high risk.

Staying Healthy

Are there any new vaccines?

Updated September 1, 2019

Ask the doctor

Q. Fancy new technologies keep appearing in medicine. Are there any innovative new kinds of vaccines?

A. There sure are. Vaccines are one of the greatest inventions in history. The smallpox vaccine campaign conducted by the World Health Organization eradicated the disease from the face of the earth by 1980. How much good did that do? From 1900 to 1980, 300 million people died from smallpox. Since 1980, not one death.

Heart Health

Did you get your flu shot yet?

Updated September 1, 2019

A nasty bout of influenza may leave you more vulnerable to heart problems. Be sure to get vaccinated against this serious infection every year — ideally in September.

Of all the things you can do to help your heart, getting a flu vaccine may be one of easiest. This recommended ritual — which the CDC advises for everyone starting at the age of 6 months — is quick and nearly painless. Yet only about half of adults ages 50 and older get a flu shot.

Avoiding the flu is especially important for people who have or are at risk for heart disease, says cardiologist Dr. Scott Solomon, professor of medicine at Harvard Medical School. "There's growing evidence linking influenza with both heart attacks and heart failure," he says.

Diseases & Conditions

Is shingles contagious?

Updated September 1, 2019

Ask the doctors

Q. I understand that shingles is caused by a virus. Does that mean that shingles is contagious?

A. Yes and no. If you had chickenpox when you were a child, you are at risk for shingles. Shingles occurs when the varicella-zoster virus that caused your chickenpox re-emerges after lying dormant in your nerve cells from the time of your original illness. When this occurs, you are contagious, but you can't give someone shingles. You can, however, infect people with chickenpox if they haven't been exposed to the virus in the past and haven't been vaccinated against it. For this reason, it's important to take precautions, particularly if you are close to someone who has a weakened immune system.

Diseases & Conditions

What do the measles outbreaks mean for me?

Updated July 1, 2019

Ask the doctor

Q. I hear that there are outbreaks of measles in the United States. I think I had measles when I was young, but I'm not sure. Do I need to worry?

A. The measles virus has been infecting humans for at least 1,000 years. When I was very young, in the 1940s, I got the measles. So did nearly every kid I knew; it is very contagious. I had a high fever, sneezing, coughing, very red eyes, and then a rash on my face and all over my body. Fortunately, I didn't develop the severe complications of measles: pneumonia (which affects one in 20 people with measles) or encephalitis (which affects one in 1,000 and can be fatal). Still, I was miserable for more than a week.

Diseases & Conditions

Tuberculosis vaccine shows promise in controlling blood sugar

Updated February 1, 2019

Research we're watching

A long-used vaccine is showing promise in helping to restore near-normal blood sugar levels in people with advanced type 1 diabetes. Researchers from Harvard Medical School injected adults who had type 1 diabetes with two doses of the bacillus Calmette-Guérin (BCG) vaccine, which is traditionally used to prevent tuberculosis.

Participants in the study, all of whom had type 1 diabetes for many years, all showed significant improvements in their average blood sugar levels after the vaccination. The improvements lasted for the next five years. Researchers said that it appears the vaccine affected a metabolic mechanism that increases consumption of glucose by cells.

Kelly Bilodeau

Diet and age at menopause: Is there a connection?

Published August 10, 2018

Staying Healthy

Baby boomers: Don’t forget hepatitis C screenings

Updated June 1, 2018

News briefs

Baby boomers are falling short in getting hepatitis C screenings. In 2012, the CDC urged the entire generation of people born from 1945 to 1965 to get this simple blood test, noting that baby boomers are five times more likely to have the virus than other adults. But a study published online March 27, 2018, by the journal Cancer Epidemiology, Biomarkers & Prevention found that only about 13% of baby boomers had been tested by 2015, up just one percentage point from 2013. The information came from national government health surveys. Hepatitis C can lead to cirrhosis, liver damage, liver cancer, and liver failure. Treatments are now available that can cure hepatitis C, if it's caught early enough. Baby boomers are believed typically to have become infected in the 1960s through the 1980s, when transmission of hepatitis C was highest. People at highest risk are those who have used intravenous drugs, had more than one sex partner, or received a blood transfusion before 1992, when the blood test for hepatitis C was first available.