COVID-19 and the heart: What have we learned?
Early in the pandemic, epidemiologists made a striking observation. Compared to the general population, people with cardiovascular disease (CVD) were more than twice as likely to contract severe forms of COVID-19. In the last six months, death rates from COVID-19 have dropped significantly, but CVD remains a major predictor of poor outcome. What have we learned about heart disease and COVID-19 in that time?
Pre-existing heart conditions and poor metabolic health increase risk of severe COVID-19
As I described in a blog post back in April, some health conditions, like diabetes, increase risk of severe COVID-19 by suppressing the immune system; others, like asthma, increase risk by weakening the lungs. However, in the early months of the pandemic it was not entirely clear how CVD increased the risk of severe COVID-19. We now have two explanations.
The first is that pre-existing heart conditions, such as damaged heart muscle or blocked heart arteries, weaken the body’s ability to survive the stress of the illness. A person with a vulnerable heart is more likely to succumb to the effects of fever, low oxygen levels, unstable blood pressures, and blood clotting disorders — all possible consequences of COVID-19 — than someone previously healthy.
A second explanation relates to poor underlying metabolic health, which is more common in those with heart disease. Poor metabolic health refers to diseases such as type 2 diabetes or prediabetes and obesity, which themselves cause in...
Source: Harvard Health Blog - Category: Consumer Health News Authors: Dara K. Lee Lewis, MD Tags: Coronavirus and COVID-19 Heart Health Source Type: blogs
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