Reuters-Health
Date: Tue, 10 Feb 2026 18:43:06 -0500 (EST)
Subject: How the flu virus kills heart cells
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Health Rounds
Health Rounds
By Nancy Lapid , Health Science Editor
Hello Health Rounds readers! In the midst of a severe flu season, researchers have discovered how the virus can cause heart damage, a revelation that could lead to future effective preventive treatments. We also report on a fertility-preserving procedure for young women being treated for cancer.
In breaking news: Trump administration proposes new Obamacare rules for 2027 with higher deductibles ; US FDA to review BHA food preservative in safety overhaul; US to cut $ 600 million in public health grants to Democrat-led states : and EU sets 'safe' consumption level for hemp-derived CBD .
Also: Caffeinated beverages may help protect the brain ; Guatemala to wind down Cuban doctors program and majority of striking New York nurses announce tentative deal with hospitals .
And a focus on AI in medicine: Medical misinformation is more likely to fool AI if source appears legitimate ; as AI enters the operating room, reports arise of botched surgeries and misidentified body parts ; AI is no better than other methods for patients seeking medical advice ; and Apps and bots barging into medicine raise questions among doctors .
?
Industry Updates
Profit forecasts from CVS , Quest Diagnostics , Philips , Gilead , Aurobindo Pharma , Waters , Becton Dickinson , CSL, and Apollo .
Novo Nordisk opens new front with patent suit over Hims’ Wegovy copies and FDA says TV Ad is false or misleading .
Pfizer to collect $29 million from SEC case against hedge fund.
Lilly signs up to $2.4 billion deal for biotech Orna Therapeutics.
AstraZeneca sees steady growth ahead on cancer drug demand.
Takeda deepens AI drug discovery push with $1.7 billion deal.
US FDA declines to approve Regenxbio's rare disease drug.
Kailera, Hengrui's pill shows 12.1% weight loss in mid-stage trial.
Lupin settles patent dispute with Astellas Pharma for $90 million.
Hologic acquired by Blackstone and TPG.
Kaiser reaches $30 million settlement with US Labor Dept over mental health care practices.
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?
Statins don’t cause most side effects blamed on them, study says
REUTERS/Lucas Jackson
Cholesterol-lowering statin drugs do not cause most of the side effects attributed to them on package inserts, a large analysis of past clinical trials found.
?
Study Rounds
How severe flu kills heart cells
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Researchers believe they now understand how severe cases of influenza damage the heart, providing an explanation for the annual uptick in heart attacks during flu season.
“We have known for years that the frequency of heart attacks increases during flu season, yet outside of clinical intuition, scant evidence exists of the underlying mechanisms of that phenomenon,” study leader Filip Swirski of the Icahn School of Medicine at Mount Sinai in New York said in a statement.
Studying tissue samples from hospitalized patients who died of influenza, the researchers learned that a type of immune cell known as a pro-dendritic cell 3 becomes infected in the lungs and travels to the heart.
There, instead of performing an immune cell's usual job of clearing the virus, the pro-dendritic cell 3 produces large amounts of an inflammatory protein called type 1 interferon (IFN-1) that triggers the death of heart muscle cells, impairing cardiac output.
“The pro-dendritic cell 3 acts as the ‘Trojan horse’ of the immune system during influenza infection, becoming infected in the lung, trafficking the virus to the heart, and disseminating it to cardiomyocytes,” study co-author Jeffrey Downey, also from Mount Sinai , said in a statement.
Vaccination against the flu offers some protection against this type of heart damage, the researchers also reported in Immunity .
Downey noted that in lab experiments, an mRNA drug that controls IFN-1 activity reduced the influenza-related heart muscle damage in test tubes and in mice and improved the muscles’ pumping ability.
The new findings “offer great promise for the development of new therapies, which are desperately needed since there are currently no viable clinical options to prevent cardiac damage” from the flu, Swirski said.
?
Read more about the flu on Reuters.com
US CDC says 2025-26 flu season ‘moderately severe’ as cases hit 11 million
Fact Check: Face masks can help reduce transmission of influenza, contrary to online posts
?
Moving the uterus out of the way of radiotherapy
In young women with cancer who need pelvic radiation, surgeons are preserving their ability to give birth in the future by temporarily moving the uterus out of the path of the high-energy radio waves, Swiss researchers report.
Writing in Fertility and Sterility Reports , Dr. Daniela Huber and Dr. Deborah Wernly of Valais Hospital in Sion, Switzerland describe the first such minimally invasive procedure in Europe to result in a live birth, in a woman who had been treated for rectal cancer at age 28.
So-called uterine and adnexal transposition for fertility preservation is done laparoscopically.
The uterus and its appendages – the ovaries, fallopian tubes and nearby ligaments, collectively known as the adnexa - are lifted to a region above the pelvis and stitched into place. After the cancer treatments are completed, the uterus is restored to its original position.
For years, surgeons have been moving the ovaries out of the way of radiotherapy, allowing women to preserve their eggs, but the uterus remained vulnerable to irreparable damage.
Uterine and adnexal transposition was pioneered by surgeons in Brazil and has also been tested by U.S. surgeons.
Collectively, the cases done so far and the successful births that resulted “demonstrate that a re-implanted uterus can sustain gestation to term, representing a significant advance for women requiring pelvic radiotherapy,” Huber and Wernly concluded.
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In case you missed it...
Health Rounds: Cancer immunotherapies may be more effective given earlier in the day
Health Rounds: Colon cancer becomes leading cause of US cancer deaths for those under 50
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This newsletter was edited by Bill Berkrot; additional reporting by Shawana Alleyne-Morris.
Sponsors are not involved in the creation of newsletters or other Reuters news content. Advertise in this newsletter or on Reuters' website
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© 2026 Thomson Reuters. All rights reserved.
3 Times Square, New York, NY 10036
Subject: How the flu virus kills heart cells
(Converted from HTML)
Get full access to Reuters.com for just $1/week. Subscribe now.
?
Health Rounds
Health Rounds
By Nancy Lapid , Health Science Editor
Hello Health Rounds readers! In the midst of a severe flu season, researchers have discovered how the virus can cause heart damage, a revelation that could lead to future effective preventive treatments. We also report on a fertility-preserving procedure for young women being treated for cancer.
In breaking news: Trump administration proposes new Obamacare rules for 2027 with higher deductibles ; US FDA to review BHA food preservative in safety overhaul; US to cut $ 600 million in public health grants to Democrat-led states : and EU sets 'safe' consumption level for hemp-derived CBD .
Also: Caffeinated beverages may help protect the brain ; Guatemala to wind down Cuban doctors program and majority of striking New York nurses announce tentative deal with hospitals .
And a focus on AI in medicine: Medical misinformation is more likely to fool AI if source appears legitimate ; as AI enters the operating room, reports arise of botched surgeries and misidentified body parts ; AI is no better than other methods for patients seeking medical advice ; and Apps and bots barging into medicine raise questions among doctors .
?
Industry Updates
Profit forecasts from CVS , Quest Diagnostics , Philips , Gilead , Aurobindo Pharma , Waters , Becton Dickinson , CSL, and Apollo .
Novo Nordisk opens new front with patent suit over Hims’ Wegovy copies and FDA says TV Ad is false or misleading .
Pfizer to collect $29 million from SEC case against hedge fund.
Lilly signs up to $2.4 billion deal for biotech Orna Therapeutics.
AstraZeneca sees steady growth ahead on cancer drug demand.
Takeda deepens AI drug discovery push with $1.7 billion deal.
US FDA declines to approve Regenxbio's rare disease drug.
Kailera, Hengrui's pill shows 12.1% weight loss in mid-stage trial.
Lupin settles patent dispute with Astellas Pharma for $90 million.
Hologic acquired by Blackstone and TPG.
Kaiser reaches $30 million settlement with US Labor Dept over mental health care practices.
?
?
Statins don’t cause most side effects blamed on them, study says
REUTERS/Lucas Jackson
Cholesterol-lowering statin drugs do not cause most of the side effects attributed to them on package inserts, a large analysis of past clinical trials found.
?
Study Rounds
How severe flu kills heart cells
?
Researchers believe they now understand how severe cases of influenza damage the heart, providing an explanation for the annual uptick in heart attacks during flu season.
“We have known for years that the frequency of heart attacks increases during flu season, yet outside of clinical intuition, scant evidence exists of the underlying mechanisms of that phenomenon,” study leader Filip Swirski of the Icahn School of Medicine at Mount Sinai in New York said in a statement.
Studying tissue samples from hospitalized patients who died of influenza, the researchers learned that a type of immune cell known as a pro-dendritic cell 3 becomes infected in the lungs and travels to the heart.
There, instead of performing an immune cell's usual job of clearing the virus, the pro-dendritic cell 3 produces large amounts of an inflammatory protein called type 1 interferon (IFN-1) that triggers the death of heart muscle cells, impairing cardiac output.
“The pro-dendritic cell 3 acts as the ‘Trojan horse’ of the immune system during influenza infection, becoming infected in the lung, trafficking the virus to the heart, and disseminating it to cardiomyocytes,” study co-author Jeffrey Downey, also from Mount Sinai , said in a statement.
Vaccination against the flu offers some protection against this type of heart damage, the researchers also reported in Immunity .
Downey noted that in lab experiments, an mRNA drug that controls IFN-1 activity reduced the influenza-related heart muscle damage in test tubes and in mice and improved the muscles’ pumping ability.
The new findings “offer great promise for the development of new therapies, which are desperately needed since there are currently no viable clinical options to prevent cardiac damage” from the flu, Swirski said.
?
Read more about the flu on Reuters.com
US CDC says 2025-26 flu season ‘moderately severe’ as cases hit 11 million
Fact Check: Face masks can help reduce transmission of influenza, contrary to online posts
?
Moving the uterus out of the way of radiotherapy
In young women with cancer who need pelvic radiation, surgeons are preserving their ability to give birth in the future by temporarily moving the uterus out of the path of the high-energy radio waves, Swiss researchers report.
Writing in Fertility and Sterility Reports , Dr. Daniela Huber and Dr. Deborah Wernly of Valais Hospital in Sion, Switzerland describe the first such minimally invasive procedure in Europe to result in a live birth, in a woman who had been treated for rectal cancer at age 28.
So-called uterine and adnexal transposition for fertility preservation is done laparoscopically.
The uterus and its appendages – the ovaries, fallopian tubes and nearby ligaments, collectively known as the adnexa - are lifted to a region above the pelvis and stitched into place. After the cancer treatments are completed, the uterus is restored to its original position.
For years, surgeons have been moving the ovaries out of the way of radiotherapy, allowing women to preserve their eggs, but the uterus remained vulnerable to irreparable damage.
Uterine and adnexal transposition was pioneered by surgeons in Brazil and has also been tested by U.S. surgeons.
Collectively, the cases done so far and the successful births that resulted “demonstrate that a re-implanted uterus can sustain gestation to term, representing a significant advance for women requiring pelvic radiotherapy,” Huber and Wernly concluded.
?
In case you missed it...
Health Rounds: Cancer immunotherapies may be more effective given earlier in the day
Health Rounds: Colon cancer becomes leading cause of US cancer deaths for those under 50
?
This newsletter was edited by Bill Berkrot; additional reporting by Shawana Alleyne-Morris.
Sponsors are not involved in the creation of newsletters or other Reuters news content. Advertise in this newsletter or on Reuters' website
Reuters Health Rounds is sent twice a week. Think your friend or colleague should know about us? Forward this newsletter to them. They can also sign up here .
Want to stop receiving this email? Unsubscribe here . To manage which newsletters you're signed up for, click here .
This email includes limited tracking for Reuters to understand whether you’ve engaged with its contents. For more information on how we process your personal information and your rights, please see our Privacy Statement .
Terms & Conditions
© 2026 Thomson Reuters. All rights reserved.
3 Times Square, New York, NY 10036