Expert: A study showing increased cardiac risk after COVID-19 becomes a wake-up call

Dr. Everina Graber participates in the Long Island Half Marathon and continues to train by running 6 miles most of the day.

However, a few weeks after being infected with COVID-19 last year, her heart became so weak that she was exhausted as she climbed the stairs at North Shore University Hospital in Manhasset.

“I could hardly climb the stairs in the hospital without shortness of breath,” she said. “I was very scared.”

Graber, 42, a cardiologist and director of female heart health in Northwell, is a victim. Of “long COVID” A syndrome that remains debilitated months after being infected with the virus.

So when researchers at Washington University in St. Louis published a study last week showing that even young and healthy people infected with COVID-19 can suffer from long-term cardiovascular problems, it was I hit Graber.

“I think it’s incredibly accurate,” Graber said of the study. “It really, really went home. It hit me personally because it hit me professionally.”

She looks at her practice trends and estimates that about a quarter of patients develop heart problems after being infected with COVID-19.

Dr. Hull Skopicki, Dean and Co-Director of the Department of Cardiology at Stony Brook Heart Institute, called the study Morning Call and “Larry Cry”, even for young people without major health problems with COVID-19. He said that efforts should be made to avoid infection. After being infected, they can suffer from long-term heart problems.

He said the study was “profound” because many believe that they are infected with COVID-19 and have little long-term impact. “Everyone can be at risk of cardiovascular complications over time,” he said, after being infected with the virus.

“This is not the flu,” he added.

Researchers have found that even mild cases of COVID-19 may increase the risk of cardiovascular problems for at least one year after diagnosis.

They found that heart failure and stroke were significantly higher in people who recovered from COVID-19 than in people with similar medical backgrounds who were not infected.

People under the age of 65 who are deficient in the following risk factors are also at increased risk. obesity Or diabetes, researchers have discovered.

“Governments and healthcare systems around the world need to be prepared to address the perhaps significant contribution of the COVID-19 pandemic to the increased burden of cardiovascular disease,” said study co-author and principal investigator Ziyad Al. -Aly says. The development and development of the Veterans Affairs (VA) St. Louis Healthcare System told the journal.

“We are people who have no existing illness or are not really affected by young people, and to the majority of those who are hospitalized or face the possibility of dying, they It’s in an existing state. They are people over the age of 65. “

New research shows that “it’s not true.”

This survey is based on the US Department of Veterans Affairs database. Researchers examined cases of 150,000 veterans who survived at least 30 days after being infected with COVID-19. They compared them to two other uninfected groups: 5 million people who used the VA medical system during a pandemic and similar sizes who used the system in 2017 before the COVID-19 hit. Is a group of.

One cardiologist interviewed in the Nature Journal said the study had limitations.

Hossein Aldehari, a cardiologist at Northwestern University in Chicago, Illinois, said the group of people monitored during the pandemic could have had a mild infection because they had not been tested for COVID-19. Said there is. In addition, he said the author only dealt with patients in the Department of Veterans Affairs Hospital, who were primarily white men.

Dr. Avni Thakore, a cardiologist and president of Greenvale-based Catholic Health Physician Partners, also said he was not surprised that he “discovered an increased long-term cardiovascular risk” among people infected with COVID-19. ..

“What we all know about COVID at this point is that COVID causes a significant inflammatory response, and sometimes the inflammatory response has long-term effects,” she said.

Graber, who was fully vaccinated in January 2021 and was the first to be infected with COVID-19 in a breakthrough one month later, has potential effects beyond stroke and heart failure, including arrhythmias and other abnormalities. He said he thought it would be included. In addition to weakening one wall of her heart, she herself suffered from a syndrome that caused her heart rate and blood pressure to spike or plummet.

She said it took months to work hard to regain cardiovascular conditioning.

“I had to spend more on my kind of training and more work than I had ever needed to get back into that cardiovascular shape,” she said.

Fortunately, she said she is now back in top shape. She was infected with the virus a second time this past Christmas season, but she suffered from a milder case.

She warned people to see a doctor if the symptoms of COVID-19 persist for more than a few weeks.

“I don’t think everyone should walk around,” he said, not an “alarmist.” “I had a COVID, what a heart attack would I die for?” rice field.

But “this is a rally cry. This is for those who say,” I’m not afraid to get infected. “They say it has a long-term impact on their health. Because I don’t think I can do it.

Both Tacole and Graber said they hope that with proper treatment, most people will recover completely, but medical professionals are still learning about COVID-19 and its long-term effects. rice field.

COVID-19 continued its general downtrend on Long Island in Monday’s test results. This is because the Omicron surge appears to be heading towards a lower point except for another spike.

Long Island registered 335 new confirmed cases in test results from Sunday, but the average 7-day positive rate dropped to 3.43% in the region.

Throughout the state, 48 people died on Sunday due to COVID-19-related causes. Two people died in Nassau County.

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