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Get the flu vaccine, reduce your risk of death
Last year was a lousy year for the flu vaccine. Hospitalizations for flu hit a nine-year high, and the vaccine prevented flu in only 23% of all recipients, compared with 50% to 60% of recipients in prior years. Why does the flu vaccine work well in some winters and not others? The flu vaccine primes the immune system to attack two proteins on the surface of the influenza A virus, hemagglutinin (H) and neuraminidase (N). Different flu strains have different combinations of these proteins — for example, the strains targeted by recent flu vaccines are H3N2 and H1N1. Unfortunately, the influenza virus is microbiology’s ans...
Source: New Harvard Health Information - September 15, 2015 Category: Consumer Health News Authors: John Ross, MD, FIDSA Tags: Cold and Flu Vaccines Flu Shot flu vaccine Source Type: news

Studies support broader use of cholesterol-lowering statins
The latest guidelines used to determine who should take a cholesterol-lowering statin to prevent heart disease appear to be more accurate and cost-efficient than the previous guidelines. That’s according to two studies led by Harvard researchers, both published in this week’s Journal of the American Medical Association. For many years, the main deciding factor in who needed to take a statin was the level of an individual’s harmful low-density lipoprotein cholesterol (LDL). Updated guidelines published in 2013 by the American College of Cardiology and the American Heart Association moved away from LDL and ...
Source: New Harvard Health Information - July 16, 2015 Category: Consumer Health News Authors: Julie Corliss Tags: Drugs and Supplements cholesterol high cholesterol statins Source Type: news

Sauna use linked to longer life, fewer fatal heart problems
After shoveling for days, breaking up ice dams, and now shivering in this week’s frigid temperatures, I wouldn’t mind sitting in a sauna for a bit. A new report in JAMA Internal Medicine makes this pastime even more appealing: regularly spending time in a sauna may help keep the heart healthy and extend life. Researchers from the University of Eastern Finland tracked 2,300 middle-aged men for an average of 20 years. They categorized the men into three groups according to how often they used a sauna each week. The men spent an average of 14 minutes per visit baking in 175° F heat. Over the course of the study, ...
Source: New Harvard Health Information - February 25, 2015 Category: Consumer Health News Authors: Beverly Merz Tags: Complementary and alternative medicine Heart Health sauna Source Type: news