HOW COVID CAN AFFECT THE HEART IN THE LONG TERM
The potential for cardiovascular complications doesn’t go away after someone has recovered from COVID. A large 2022 study tracking medical records of 691,455 patients in the United States found that people had a significantly higher risk of developing virtually all heart-related diseases in the year after a COVID infection. According to the research, people were 1.5 times more likely to have a stroke, nearly twice as likely to have a heart attack, and had between 1.6 and 2.4 times the risk of developing different types of arrhythmias.
“Early on, we saw the impact on the cardiovascular system during COVID illness,” said Dr Helene Glassberg, a cardiologist and associate professor of clinical medicine at the University of Pennsylvania Perelman School of Medicine, who was not part of the study. “But now we’re seeing the long-term consequences in people who’ve had prior COVID.”
Some of these conditions may be caused by the lingering effects of the infection. Others may develop because COVID is also associated with the onset of risk factors for heart disease, most notably hypertension. One recent study found that nearly 21 per cent of people who were hospitalised for a Covid infection, and close to 11 per cent of people who had a milder infection and were not hospitalised, went on to develop high blood pressure in the following months.
Experts don’t exactly know how COVID leads to hypertension. There may be something biological going on, but the general stress of the pandemic has probably also played a role, Dr Laffin said.
HOW VACCINES REDUCE THE RISK
Research has shown that people who are vaccinated are roughly 40 to 60 per cent less likely to have a heart attack or stroke following a COVID infection than those who are unvaccinated. This may be because vaccinated people are less likely to develop severe COVID, which in turn lowers the risk of many of these heart-related issues. Or the vaccine may help protect the cardiovascular system itself – by reducing the inflammatory effects of COVID, for example.
There is a small risk of developing myocarditis (inflammation of the heart muscle) in the weeks after getting an mRNA COVID vaccine made by Pfizer-BioNTech or Moderna. However, the risk of myocarditis after having COVID is much higher.
A study by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention reported that males ages 12 to 29 – who have the greatest risk of vaccine complications – were four to eight times more likely to develop myocarditis following a COVID infection than in the three weeks after receiving a dose of vaccine. For males 30 and older, the risk of myocarditis was 28 times higher from COVID than from the vaccine.
“While it’s important to understand that this vaccine-related event is real,” Dr Glassberg said, “the risk to your heart is much greater from COVID than from vaccine.”
Source: CNA
