COVID Patients at Risk for 20
Cardiovascular Diseases
According to a new study published in Nature Medicine, people
infected with COVID-19 have a higher risk of developing 20 different heart and
vascular diseases.
The research found that even people who were never infected with
COVID-19 developed more cardiovascular disease than those who were. Long-term
effects could include heart failure, stroke, irregular heart rhythms, blood
clots, blood vessel diseases, and heart inflammation disorders such as
pericarditis and myocarditis.
"For patients with long-haul COVID, 20 cardiac disorders were
diagnosed." The most common is the shortness of breath and fatigue,"
Evelina Grayver, MD, the director of women's heart health at Northwell Health
in New York, who wasn't involved with the study, told Fox News.
"The new arrhythmias, or abnormal heart rhythms that people
experience," she explained, "are significant as well and can become
extremely handicapping for a lot of patients."
Researchers analyzed data from nearly 154,000 veterans who had
COVID-19 between March 2020 and January 2021 in the U.S. Department of Veterans
Affairs national health care databases. They estimated the risks and one-year
outlook for 20 cardiovascular diseases.
Compared to those who did not contract coronavirus, veterans who
had COVID-19 a year prior had a significantly higher risk of all 20 heart and
vessel conditions. The risk rose with the severity of COVID-19, climbing even
higher among the nearly 17,000 veterans who were hospitalized and the 5,400
veterans who were treated in intensive care units.
The risk varied by condition. For instance, veterans who had
COVID-19 faced a 72% higher risk of heart failure after 12 months than those
who didn't test positive. The study found that that translated to about 12 more
people per 1,000 developing heart failure. Overall, 45 more infected people per
1,000 than uninfected people developed any of the 20 conditions.
According to Science, 99.7% of infected veterans were unvaccinated
when they contracted COVID-19 so because the study period ended before vaccines
were widely available. The paper does not address whether the risks of
long-term cardiovascular problems in vaccinated people are the same after a
breakthrough infection. Another study is analyzing that question and is now
under review at a medical journal, the news outlet reported.
According to the study's authors, the research also focused on the
veteran population, which is older, white, and male. The average age of the
patients was 60, and about 90% of them were men. More than 70% of them were
white. The research team controlled for the possibility that those who
contracted COVID-19 were already more prone to developing cardiovascular
disease, Science reported. They also used statistical tools to correct gender
and race.
COVID is an equal opportunity offender, according to Ziyad Al-Aly,
senior study author and chief of research at the V.A. St. Louis Health Care
System.
"We found an increased risk of cardiovascular problems in old
people and in young people, in people with diabetes and without diabetes, in
people with obesity and people without obesity, in people who smoked and who
never smoked," he said.
COVID-19 causes heart and blood vessel damage, raising the risk of
cardiovascular disease, according to scientists. Coronavirus may directly
attack heart muscles during infection, cause inflammation in the cells that
line the inside of the heart and blood vessels, and lead to overall
inflammation that scars the heart and vessels, Al-Aly told Science.
For now, he said, the study suggests that millions of COVID-19
survivors in the U.S. will suffer long-term consequences, which could strain
the health care system for years to come and decrease life expectancy.
"What really worries me is that some of these conditions are chronic conditions that will literally scar people for a lifetime," he said. "It's not like you wake up tomorrow and suddenly no longer have heart failure."