People who have COVID-19 face a much greater risk of having a stroke or heart attack, a large study has found.
The research used US Department of Veterans Affairs data on more than 150,000 people who had the coronavirus between March 2020 and January 2021.
All the patients survived the first 30 days of the disease and because of when the data was collected, most were unvaccinated.
The group was compared to 5.6 million who did not have Covid during the same period, as well as 5.8 million who were heart patients in 2018 or 2018.
People who contracted Covid were 52 per cent more likely to have a stroke, 72 per cent more likely to have coronary heart disease and 63 per cent more likely to have a heart attack.
University assistant professor and study author, Dr Ziyad Al Aly, said:
“For people who were clearly at risk for a heart condition before becoming infected with Sars-CoV-2, the findings suggest that Covid-19 may amplify the risk.
“But most remarkably, people who have never had any heart problems and were considered low risk are also developing heart problems after Covid-19.”
Risks were increased across the board, regardless of age, race, sex and diabetes or obesity status.
Dr Bharat Pankhania, a senior clinical lecturer at the University of Exeter, was “not surprised at all” that heart problems persist.
Dr Pankhania attributed this to the way that coronavirus infection can trigger an immune response that causes continuing organ damage.
He said: “Be it the heart, be it the brain, be it the kidney, be it the liver.
“There are some viruses that do so, and Sars-CoV-2 appears to trigger a continued reaction in your body after the virus has come and gone.”
The findings highlight the importance of vaccination as this reduces the chance of severe infection that can trigger such a response, he added.
