People with a history of COVID-19 diagnoses are at twice the risk for heart attack and stroke, according to new research by Cleveland Clinic and the University of Southern California.
People who had a COVID-19 infection were twice as likely to experience a major cardiac event, such as heart attack, stroke or death, for up to three years after diagnosis, the research found. The risk was significantly higher for patients hospitalized for COVID-19 and more of a determinant than a previous history of heart disease.
“While it’s 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,” said the Clinic's Dr. Stanley Hazen in a statement.
Certain genetic variants in people are already linked to coronary artery disease, heart attack and COVID-19 infection, but researchers found those variants did not contribute to elevated coronary artery disease risk after COVID-19.
But blood type could be a factor. Individuals with a blood type other than O were twice as likely to experience a cardiovascular event after having COVID-19 than those with O-type blood. Previous research has shown that people with A, B or AB blood types were also more susceptible to COVID-19 than those with O-type.
That finding "signals the need for further investigation,” Dr. Hazen said. “A better understanding of what COVID-19 does at the molecular level may potentially teach us about pathways linked to cardiovascular disease risk.”
The research data included more than 227,000 people, including more than 10,000 who had a COVID-19 infection between February to December 2020. More than 1 billion people worldwide have had COVID-19, Hazen said.
