health.msn.com — Being vaccinated against pneumonia halves the risk of having a heart attack two years later, a new Canadian study finds. The study compared 999 people admitted to Canadian hospitals for heart attacks, with 3,996 admitted for other reasons. It found no difference between those who did or did not have the pneumococcal vaccine in the previous year, but a 50 percent lower rate for those getting the vaccine two years earlier. "If confirmed, this association should generate interest in exploring the putative mechanisms and may offer another reason to promote pneumococcal vaccination," said a report in the current issue of the Canadian Medical Association Journal from researchers at the University of Sherbrooke in Quebec. There are plenty of theories and many statistics linking pneumonia with heart attacks, said Dr. Mohammad Madjid, a senior research scientist at the Texas Heart Institute, who wrote an accompanying commentary.
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