Major new research suggests that even mild Covid infections can age arteries in a way that increases long-term risks of heart attack and stroke, reports SciTechDaily.
As mounting evidence points toward Covid survivors experiencing long-term cardiovascular complications, potentially due to vascular damage from the disease, a team of more than 180 researchers came together to investigate whether Covid infection causes accelerated vascular ageing. Our veins and arteries naturally become stiffer as we age, but Covid infections appear to speed up that process, prematurely ageing blood vessels by around five years with strongest effect seen among women.
“For people with accelerated vascular aging,” study lead Professor Rosa Maria Bruno of Université Paris Cité in France explained to SciTechDaily, “it is important to do whatever is possible to reduce the risk of heart attacks and strokes.” Lifestyle changes, blood pressure- and cholesterol-lowering medications can all help reduce that risk.
[See more: Covid vaccines saved an estimated 2.5 million lives worldwide, study finds]
Researchers followed 2,390 participants across 34 health centres in 16 countries, including Brazil, Portugal, Norway, Turkey, Tunisia and the US. Recruited between September 2020 and February 2022, participants were divided into four groups: those who never had Covid, those with recent infection but not hospitalisation, those hospitalised in a general ward and those admitted to the ICU.
Researchers measured vascular ageing at six and 12 months post-infection using a device that tracks how quickly a blood pressure wave travels between pulse points in the neck and legs. The higher the carotid-femoral pulse wave velocity (PWV), the stiffer the blood vessels. Velocity increases of around 0.5 metres per second are considered “clinically relevant,” equating to about five years of ageing and a 3-percent increased risk of cardiac events. The average increase in PWV for women who had Covid ranged from 0.55 metres per second in mild cases, to 0.60 for hospitalisations and 1.09 for those treated in intensive care.
While researchers controlled for demographic factors, they note that non-hospitalisation includes a range of severities and that other health hazards associated with ICU admission increase cardiovascular risk. The more pronounced effect among women may be due to more rapid, robust immune responses potentially increasing damage to blood vessels – or a survivorship bias as men are more likely to die from the disease. Vaccinated women did see lower PWV than those who weren’t vaccinated, a finding in line with other studies showing vaccination reduces severity of long Covid symptoms.
