HealthDay News, Wednesday, October 9, 2024 -- According to a recent study, a severe COVID infection can raise a person's risk of heart attack and stroke just as much as a history of heart disease.
Researchers discovered that the risk of a significant cardiac event was roughly the same for patients with heart disease who had never had COVID as for those who were hospitalized for the virus.
The findings also demonstrated that for up to three years after illness, any kind of COVID infection, from moderate to severe, doubles the chance of a catastrophic cardiac catastrophe.
Co-senior researcher Dr. Stanley Hazen, chair of cardiovascular and metabolic sciences with the Cleveland Clinic's Lerner Research Institute, stated, "These findings reveal that, despite being an upper respiratory tract infection, COVID-19 has a variety of health implications and underscores that we should consider history of prior COVID-19 infection when formulating cardiovascular disease preventive plans and goals."
Although it was evident early in the epidemic that COVID raises a person's risk of blood clots and heart issues, researchers said they still don't fully understand how long this risk lasts or what factors affect it.
dResearchers examined the heart health of almost 10,000 COVID patients in the UK who were diagnosed between February and December 2020 with that of nearly 218,000 individuals who were not infected with the virus.
Hospitalization for COVID is "risk equivalent" to coronary artery disease, the team concluded.
They also discovered that a person's blood type affects their risk.
According to the findings, after a severe COVID infection, those with blood types A, B, and AB were more likely to experience heart issues later on than those with blood type O.
This implies that a person's cardiac risk after contracting COVID-19 may be influenced by their genetic makeup, according to researchers.
The results appeared in the journal Arteriosclerosis, Thrombosis and Vascular Biology on October 9.
Co-senior researcher Hooman Allayee, a professor of population and public health sciences as well as biochemistry and molecular medicine at the University of Southern California Keck School of Medicine, stated, "We're trying to rule out other alternative explanations, but it looks like there's really something biological going on with these specific blood groups."
According to a university news release, Allayee continued, "Our study raises important questions about whether more aggressive cardiovascular risk reduction efforts should be considered, possibly by taking into account an individual's genetic makeup, given our collective observations and the fact that 60% of the world's population have these non-O blood types."
Now, the question is: Even in the absence of documented heart illness, could this discovery and further research alter international recommendations for preventative cardiac care? "Allayee said."