COVID-19 infection seems to increase heart attack, stroke risk up to 3 years later

NEW YORK, Oct. 9 (UPI) -- People infected with COVID-19 appear to face a higher risk of heart attack and stroke for up to three years, a new study finds.

The study was published Wednesday in the American Heart Association's journal, Arteriosclerosis, Thrombosis and Vascular Biology.

Researchers, who analyzed UK Biobank health data on adults with mild to severe COVID-19 before vaccines became available, noted that treatments to prevent cardiovascular disease may reduce the risk of future heart attack and stroke in people infected with severe COVID-19.

"COVID-19 doesn't just affect your lungs in the short term. It can leave this lasting impact on your heart, even if you didn't have any pre-existing heart issues," said the study's lead author, James Hilser, a doctoral student in molecular medicine at the University of Southern California Keck School of Medicine in Los Angeles.

Patients hospitalized with severe COVID-19 "should be reassessed by having a conversation with their cardiologist and discuss cardiovascular prevention therapy," Hilser said.

During the nearly three-year follow-up after infection, the risk of heart attack, stroke and death was more than two times greater among adults who had COVID-19, and almost four times higher among those hospitalized with COVID-19, compared with the group without a history of COVID-19 infection.

People hospitalized with COVID-19, without cardiovascular disease or without type 2 diabetes, had a higher risk of heart attack, stroke and death that was equivalent to the risk in people with cardiovascular disease but without COVID-19 infection.

The elevated risk of heart attack, stroke and death linked to COVID-19 infection was even more pronounced -- about 65% -- among adults with blood types A, B or AB as opposed to type O, researchers noted, suspecting a major genetic interaction among these blood types and hospitalization for COVID-19.

Researchers found this heightened risk to be similar to cardiovascular risk factors such as type 2 diabetes, peripheral artery disease and cardiovascular disease.

"In people who didn't have any known heart disease but ended up hospitalized for COVID-19, their risk of heart attack, stroke and death was just as bad as if they had heart disease but no COVID-19," said principal investigator and corresponding author Hooman Allayee, a professor of population and public health sciences at the University of Southern California Keck School of Medicine.

There were 10,005 COVID-19 infections documented in the UK Biobank from February 2020 through December 2020, compared to more than 217,000 people in a control group.

The UK Biobank involved 503,325 adults in the United Kingdom. They were 40 to 69 years old at enrollment between 2006 and 2010 and provided in-depth health and biomedical information registered in the UK National Health Service through a general practitioner.

Most clinicians didn't expect a link between common viral infections and long-term risks of heart attack, stroke and death, but that perception changed over time, said Dr. James Cireddu, a cardiologist at University Hospitals Harrington Heart & Vascular Institute in Cleveland. He was not involved in the study.

"That said, it has been unclear how long the elevated risk would remain after resolution of the infection," Cireddu said, adding that the immune system and inflammatory factors are important contributors to conditions that cause heart attacks.

Also, he noted that "the study was further support that incompletely understood blood types likely play an important role in the way the body mounts immune responses to viral infections like COVID-19."

Dr. Adrian Hernandez, a cardiologist and director of the Duke Clinic Research Institute in Durham, N.C., said "COVID-19 has longer implications in terms of heart health, and it has always been known as more than a virus that causes a cough."

For people who develop a COVID-19 infection, Hernandez said: "Make sure to eat right, exercise, stay away from smoking and watch blood pressure and lipids to prevent any heart problems."