Severe coronavirus increases risk of heart attack, stroke, study finds

People hospitalized with COVID-19 early in the pandemic had an increased risk of serious “cardiac events” such as heart attacks and strokes, similar to those with a history of heart disease, researchers found. This was discovered in a newly published study.

Researchers from USC, UCLA, and the Cleveland Clinic analyzed more than 10,000 COVID-19 cases tracked by the UK Biobank to determine how the coronavirus affects the risk of heart attacks and other cardiac threats. We investigated whether it had any impact.

Their study was published Wednesday. Journal of Atherosclerosis, Thrombosis, and Vascular Biologyevaluated the outcomes of people who became ill during the first year of the pandemic and followed them for almost three years.

The study results highlight that “among people without evidence of heart disease, severe COVID-19 infection significantly increases the risk of heart attack, stroke, and death,” said the lead researcher. said Houman Alaiyi, professor of population and public health sciences. at the Keck School of Medicine, University of Southern California.

One of the most striking findings is that if you are hospitalized with coronavirus in 2020, your risk of a heart attack or other cardiac event is greatly amplified, and ultimately people with a history of heart disease but infected with coronavirus The study found that the number of infected people became equivalent to that of uninfected people. .

The analysis showed that the additional risks were particularly pronounced among critically ill patients, but the researchers stressed that the risks were still evident for patients who had some form of coronavirus infection. .

The study found that such risk was approximately twice as high among people infected with the coronavirus at all levels of severity and four times higher among hospitalized patients compared with those who did not get the virus. .

The study found that the increased risk “does not show obvious signs of attenuation until nearly three years after SARS-CoV-2 infection, and that COVID-19 infection poses a significant public risk of lingering adverse cardiovascular risks.” “These results suggest that the virus continues to pose a health burden,” the researchers wrote.

Scientists also found that risks differ depending on blood type. People with blood types A, B, or AB are at increased risk of being hospitalized with COVID-19 than people with blood type O.

“In fact, genetics play a role in increasing the risk of developing a future heart attack or stroke,” said James Hilser, a Keck doctoral candidate in biochemistry and molecular medicine who co-authored the paper. said.

Researchers said the findings could help shape how doctors avoid such health problems in the future. Doctors routinely offer preventive treatment to patients with medical conditions such as cardiovascular disease and diabetes that put them at high risk for heart attack or stroke.

Alaiyi said that if someone comes into the clinic and is newly diagnosed with diabetes, “it doesn't matter what their cholesterol is…they'll be given lipid-lowering drugs. They'll be given infant aspirin. It will be administered.”

But when doctors think about heart attack prevention, “no one takes COVID-19 into consideration in the way they manage patients, whether they're severe or not,” Alaiy said. Given the findings, “this is something doctors should be discussing” as well as cardiac care regulators, he said.

The study, which was funded by the National Institutes of Health, had several limitations. It only looked at people infected with the coronavirus early in the pandemic, before a vaccine was available. (another study The paper, published earlier this year, was also based on UK Biobank data and found that the incidence of heart attacks and strokes generally decreases with each dose of a coronavirus vaccine).

The researchers also warned that some coronavirus patients may have had undiagnosed heart disease at the time of admission, but this is not clear from the UK Biobank data.