17 Surprising Things That Could Affect Your Heart Health

Getting the Flu

The annual flu shot will not only shield you from the flu, it might also protect your heart. Here’s why. After getting the influenza virus, the following weak you are six times more likely to suffer from a heart attack according to a study published in the New England Journal of Medicine in 2018.

While your body is busy protecting itself from the virus by sending defense mechanisms against it it also causes something else to happen- blood vessel inflammation.

The flu shot, which decreases the overall inflammatory effect on the heart, protects you!

Having Breast Cancer

In February 2018, the American Heart Association warned women who received chemotherapy and radiation for breast cancer as they were found to be at greater risk for heart disease.

Survivors, especially those over the age of 65, are more likely to die from heart disease than from breast cancer. Of course, this does not mean pausing your breast cancer treatments. You simply should be aware of the risk and take measures to avoid any further damage done to your heart by taking on a healthy lifestyle.

Living Through a Natural Disaster

“It may be related to the underlying stress that people are under,” explains Dr. Frishman. And, if you already have heart disease, you may be at even greater risk during and after such events, he adds.

This is yet another environmental factor. After the devastating Hurricane Katrina hit New Orleans, the Tulane Medical Center saw a three-fold increase in heart attack related hospital admissions. Similarly, heart attacks, strokes and other similar conditions rose after Japan’s magnitude 9 earthquake in 2011.

We still don’t know how Hurricane Maria affected people in Puerto Rico, but researchers speculate that the official death count may have included those who died from heart attacks too.