NICE Newsroom

A study funded by the American National Institutes of Health (NIH) has revealed that adults who were hospitalized for a severe infection were more than twice as likely to develop heart failure in the years that followed.

These findings, published in the Journal of the American Heart Association, highlight the significance of taking preventive measures against severe infections, such as staying up-to-date on vaccinations and practicing good hygiene.

The study followed 14,468 adults aged 45-64 from 1987 to 2018. None had heart failure when the study began. The researchers found that individuals who hospitalized due to an infection had a 2.35 times higher risk of developing heart failure at an average time of seven years after surviving the hospitalization.