The COVID Heart—One Year After SARS-CoV-2 Infection, Patients Have an Array of Increased Cardiovascular Risks

Abbasi discusses increased risks for cardiovascular disease outcomes 1 year after SARS-CoV-2 infection. A study by researchers at the Veterans Affairs (VA) St Louis Health Care System found that in the year after recovering from the illness's acute phase, patients had increased risks of an array of cardiovascular problems, including abnormal heart rhythms, heart muscle inflammation, blood clots, strokes, myocardial infarction, and heart failure. The heightened risks were evident even among those who weren't hospitalized with acute COVID-19. The study demonstrates that cardiovascular disease is 1 facet of the multifaceted disorder known as long COVID, according to study senior author Ziyad Al-Aly, MD. He emphasized that long COVID is not only fatigue or brain fog but rather the constellation of symptoms and organ dysfunction that result from COVID-19 and persist or arise anew in the postacute phase of the disease.