People suffering from long Covid at increased cardiovascular disease risk: Study

A team of researchers has shown that people with long Covid are likely to be at an increased risk of developing cardiovascular disease.

The research from Karolinska Institutet in Sweden, published in the journal eClinicalMedicine, found that the risk of conditions such as cardiac arrhythmias and coronary artery disease is higher even among those who were not hospitalised during the acute infection.

“We found that cardiac arrhythmias and coronary artery disease were more common among both women and men with long Covid. In women, there was also an increased risk of heart failure and peripheral vascular disease,” said Pia Lindberg from the Department of Medicine, Solna, Karolinska Institutet.

However, no clear association was found between long Covid and stroke. According to the study, long Covid has become an increasingly significant health problem worldwide, and a growing number of studies suggest that the condition can lead to secondary cardiovascular diseases.

In the current study, the researchers investigated how often major cardiovascular events occur in these individuals compared with those without the diagnosis.

From over 1.2 million people aged between 18 and 65, around 9,000 had been diagnosed with long Covid, corresponding to 0.7 per cent. Two-thirds of them were women.