Mexico City.- Headaches, fatigue, difficulty breathing and cognitive problems are common symptoms of prolonged COVID, a persistent and disconcerting illness that can persist for months or years after the initial coronavirus infection.
A series of new studies that will present themselves at the 2023 Scientific Conference of the American College of Cardiología suggest that people with COVID, even mild ones, could also be at risk of long-term cardiovascular problems.
The COVID-19 causes an increase in the rates of chest pain between six months and a year after the infection in the patients, according to the investigators of Intermountain Health of the University of Salt Lake City in the United States, who are responsible for their study. 150,000 patients were analyzed and their conclusions were presented in this event.
Their investigation concluded that even patients with mild COVID-19 infections can suffer health complications for months, even years.
About 19% of US adults who previously tested positive for a COVID-19 test reported sequelae linked to prolonged COVID, illness in which they experience signs and symptoms for four weeks or longer after the initial phase of the infection. In an effort to quantify what the Long COVID means now, and what it could mean in the future for these patients, researchers from Intermountain Health in Salt Lake City studied nearly 150,000 patients in search of cardiovascular symptoms.
They discovered that patients who tested positive for COVID-19 had higher levels of pain in their chest in the six months to a year after the infection.
“Many patients with COVID-19 experience symptoms much more than the acute phase of the infection. Although we did not observe significant rates of important events such as heart attack or stroke in patients who had a mild initial infection, we found that pain in the chest is a persistent problem, which could be a sign of future cardiovascular complications”, said Heidi T May, cardiovascular epidemiologist at Intermountain Health and principal investigator of the study.
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In the large retrospective study, the investigators compared three groups of patients. On the one hand, people aged 18 years old who died positive for COVID and received treatment in an outpatient setting from March 2020 to December 31, 2021.
On the other hand, patients with negative COVID of approximately the same age and sex as those who died positive for COVID-19 and, finally, patients seen between January 1, 2018 and August 31, 2019, as a historical control, to give Account of how patients accessed medical attention differently during the worst of the pandemic.
The Intermountain research team discovered that at intervals of six months and a year, patients who tested positive for the COVID-19 test had significantly higher rates of experiencing pain in their breasts, but did not see other increases in cardiovascular events .
“At this moment, the symptoms do not necessarily translate into alarming results, but this is something that should be reevaluated with time. It could happen that the lasting effects of infection in the cardiovascular system are difficult to quantify in terms of diagnoses or other events in the short term and are not noticed until a longer follow-up ”, he said. May.
“From the perspective of health policy, these results also indicate a significant effect on the future use of medical care and even potential implications for participation in labor force”, wrote the researchers in their report. Approximately one out of every five patients infected with COVID-19 develops long-term COVID symptoms.
The good news is that a recent study found that the COVID vaccines seem to significantly reduce the risk of contracting it.
Scientists also found that before the pandemic, around 45% of patients reported some degree of depression. As of 2021, this has changed to a 55%. There is no significant difference in the scores between positive and negative COVID patients. Depression, anxiety, stress and post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD) are related to higher rates of high blood pressure and higher levels of cortisol, which can lead to the accumulation of calcium in the arteries, metabolic diseases and heart diseases, according to the CDC.
“We know that depression is a risk factor for chronic illnesses, which is why, given these hallmarks, it is really important to mitigate some of the effects of depression so that these patients can lead more healthy and happy lives now and in the future” , concluded May. (With information from Infobae)
