<\/p>\n<\/p>\n
People who recovered from COVID-19 have a higher risk of stroke, heart attack and other cardiovascular problems even months later.<\/p>\n
•\tHeart disease is currently the leading cause of deathTrusted Source in the United States.<\/p>\n
•\tMore than 44 million Americans — and more than 237 million people worldwide — have survived COVID-19.<\/p>\n
People who survived COVID-19 have a higher risk of stroke, heart attack, heart failure, and other cardiovascular problems months after their initial infection, according to a new preprint of a study released October 5.<\/p>\n
This higher risk applies not just to people who had severe COVID-19 but also to those who were not sick enough to require hospitalization.<\/p>\n
Heart disease is already the leading cause of deathTrusted Source in the United States.<\/p>\n
More than 43 million Americans — and more than 234 million people worldwide — have survived COVID-19. This could lead to an increased burden of heart-related diseases over the next few years.<\/p>\n
“Care strategies of people who survived the acute episode of COVID-19 should include attention to cardiovascular health and disease,” the authors of the new study wrote.<\/p>\n
Heart problems seen in COVID-19 patients<\/p>\n
The study has yet to be peer-reviewed, but it joins previously published researchTrusted Source that looked at heart damage in people with COVID-19. Most of those studies focused on hospitalized patients.<\/p>\n
The new study also included people with COVID-19 who were treated as outpatients. In addition, researchers followed veterans for a longer time after their initial infection — 8 months to a little over a year.<\/p>\n
To determine the extent of COVID-19-related heart effects, researchers examined the electronic health records of over 151,000 U.S. veterans who had survived the first 30 days of their illness.<\/p>\n
This included people who had been hospitalized for COVID-19, admitted to the intensive care unit (ICU), or seen as an outpatient.<\/p>\n
Researchers compared these patients to two similar groups of veterans who did not have COVID-19.<\/p>\n
Most of the patients were white and male, which may limit how well the results apply to other groups, the authors wrote.<\/p>\n
Researchers found that people who survived COVID-19 had a higher risk of cardiovascular problems even months later, compared to the group without COVID-19.<\/p>\n
This included a 48 percent higher risk of stroke, a 79 percent higher risk of atrial fibrillation (AFib), a 61 percent higher risk of heart attack, and a 73 percent higher risk of heart failure.<\/p>\n
These risks were higher for people who had more severe COVID-19. But even people who were seen as outpatients were at higher risk of heart and related problems.<\/p>\n
People admitted to the ICU had an almost 6-fold higher risk of any cardiovascular condition compared to people who didn’t have COVID-19.<\/p>\n
For patients hospitalized but not admitted to the ICU, the overall risk was around 3-fold higher. Non-hospitalized patients had a 1.4-fold higher risk.<\/p>\n
In this study, “we provide evidence that beyond the first 30 days of infection, people with COVID-19 exhibited increased risks and 12-month burdens of incident cardiovascular disease,” the authors wrote.<\/p>\n
Risk of heart-related problems<\/p>\n
As an observational study, researchers can’t say that COVID-19 directly caused the higher cardiovascular risk.<\/p>\n
But other researchTrusted Source has found a similar link between COVID-19 and heart problems.<\/p>\n
“It’s from a reputable team who previously published similar research showing that COVID-19 leaves people with wide-ranging chronic health problems, and does this to a greater degree and more often than seasonal influenza,” wrote Zoë Hyde, PhD, an epidemiologist at The University of Western Australia, on Twitter.<\/p>\n
Scientists are still trying to determine why people who’ve had COVID-19 have a higher risk of heart and related problems, even months after their initial infection.<\/p>\n
Possible mechanisms include lingering damage caused when the coronavirus infects cells in the heart. Or an ongoing excessive immune response after coronavirus infection that causes additional damage in the body.<\/p>\n
The authors of the study point out that indirect factors may also play a role, like the impact of stay-at-home orders, job loss, changes in eating habits or physical activity levels during the pandemic, or death of a family member.<\/p>\n
Social, economic, and other stressors “experienced by people with COVID-19 may also shape their cardiovascular outcomes,” researchers wrote. (Shawn Radcliffe)<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
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