People infected with COVID-19 early on show increased risk of heart disease

FRESNO, Calif. (KFSN) -- While we are a few years out of the COVID-19 pandemic, we can still feel its after-effects.

"Most of us knew that there would be more to come, unfortunately," said Dr. Rachel Yankey with St. Agnes Medical Center and a member of the Central Valley Heart Association. "As we deal with things like Long COVID and the impacts that it can have on your cardiovascular system long term."

A study from the National Institutes of Health showed people who were unvaccinated and infected with COVID-19 early on in the pandemic appeared to have a significantly increased risk of heart disease and heart attack, even death three years later.

"This is people, a lot of whom did not have a prior history of heart disease," said Dr. Yankey. "But after Covid, they had more cardiovascular events."

Scientists looked at data from 10,000 people, with ages ranging between 40 to 69 years old. At the time of the study, 8,000 people were positive for the virus, while 2,000 people were hospitalized with severe cases of the disease.

"There was clearly an increased incidence of heart disease post-COVID in that population," said Dr. Yankey. "Those with the severe cases of COVID, like those who were actually hospitalized, had up to four time increased risk of cardiovascular events compared to those people without COVID history."

Dr. Yankey weighed in further on the study.

"Suggesting now from this study that now COVID has become what we call a cardiovascular risk equivalent," said Dr. Yankey.

Blood type could also be a risk factor.

"What they saw is that there were even higher risk in certain blood types in the A, B, and AB blood type than there were in the O blood type," said Dr. Yankey.

Dr. Yankey says more research needs to be done to understand how COVID affects our heart. But there are steps we can take to keep ourselves healthy.

"The best thing, for those who've already had it recently, is to check back in with your doctor," said Dr. Yankey. "Keep your routine checkups around your heart health."

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