A stroke is a serious health problem. It happens when blood can’t reach your brain. Imagine a road block that stops cars from moving, that’s what happens to the blood.
Most of the time, strokes are caused by a blockage in the blood vessels leading to the brain. We call this an “ischemic stroke.”
The Flu Shot
A flu shot is a type of vaccine that helps your body fight off the flu. Getting a flu shot every year is a good idea, especially in the colder months when the flu is more common.
What Did the Scientists Want to Know?
Scientists in Spain, led by a man named Dr. Francisco J. de Abajo, wanted to see if getting a flu shot might help people avoid getting a stroke.
Previous studies had shown that getting the flu can increase your chances of having a stroke, but nobody knew if the flu shot might do the opposite.
How Did They Find Out?
The scientists looked at a huge list of people’s health records in Spain over 14 years.
They found 14,322 people who had a stroke and compared them to 71,610 people who did not. These groups were matched by age and gender.
They checked to see if these people had gotten a flu shot at least two weeks before they had a stroke, or the same date for those who did not have a stroke.
What Did They Discover?
They found out that 41.4% of the people who had a stroke got the flu shot. This was compared to 40.5% of the people who did not have a stroke.
But, the people who got the flu shot were usually older and had other health issues like high blood pressure and high cholesterol. These are things that can make you more likely to have a stroke.
After the scientists considered these things, they found that people who got a flu shot were 12% less likely to have a stroke!
They also checked if the pneumonia vaccine (another type of shot) had any effect on stroke, but they didn’t find any connection.
The Takeaway
Dr. de Abajo said, “These results are another good reason to get your yearly flu shot, especially if you’re at a higher risk of stroke.”
He believes that taking a simple step like getting a flu shot could potentially reduce your risk of having a stroke.
But remember, this study was observational. That means it didn’t prove that the flu shot can prevent strokes. It just showed that there might be a link.
There could be other things that the study didn’t consider that might affect stroke risk. So, more studies are needed to understand this better.
If you care about stroke, please read studies that diets high in flavonoids could help reduce stroke risk, and MIND diet could slow down cognitive decline after stroke.
For more information about nutrition, please see recent studies about antioxidants that could help reduce the risk of dementia, and tea and coffee may help lower your risk of stroke, dementia.
The study was published in Neurology.
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