The Briefing Room

General Category => Health/Education => Topic started by: Elderberry on August 01, 2020, 01:57:52 pm

Title: A startling number of COVID-19 patients suffer lasting heart damage
Post by: Elderberry on August 01, 2020, 01:57:52 pm
ZME Science by Fermin Koop July 31, 2020

There could be long-term implications from the novel coronavirus

As the coronavirus pandemic develops, researchers are getting a better picture of the long-term problems that the virus can cause after people recover. Now, two studies from Germany argued that COVID-19 can have a severe effect on the heart, even when the illness wasn’t severe.

People with underlying cardiovascular problems such as high blood pressure and coronary artery disease were known to be at higher risk of infection and death since the pandemic began. Doctors connected pulmonary embolisms, strokes, and heart attacks with the virus. However, the connection between COVID-19 and heart problems may extend far beyond this.

A study from the University Hospital Frankfurt looked at the cardiovascular MRIs of 100 people who had recovered from the coronavirus and compared them with heart images of people who hadn’t been infected.

Most of the patients hadn’t been hospitalized and recovered at home, with symptoms ranging from none to moderate. Two months after recovering from COVID-19, the patients were more likely to have troubling cardiac signs than people in the control group. Up to 78% of them had structural changes to the heart, while 76% had evidence of a biomarker signaling cardiac injury typically found after a heart attack, and 60% had signs of inflammation.

More: https://www.zmescience.com/science/coronavirus-patients-heart-damage-31072020/ (https://www.zmescience.com/science/coronavirus-patients-heart-damage-31072020/)
Title: Re: A startling number of COVID-19 patients suffer lasting heart damage
Post by: Applewood on August 01, 2020, 02:28:07 pm
Sounds right to me.  I was told when I developed heart disease that flu and pneumonia could cause potentially fatal damage to the heart -- which is why I get vaccinated against them.  I guess it makes sense that COVID could be just as bad for the heart or worse.