Researchers say COVID increases the risk of heart attacks and strokes as much as heart disease

Getting COVID-19 increases a person’s risk of having a heart attack or stroke at the same rate as developing heart disease, a new study published in Arteriosclerosis, Thrombosis and Vascular Biology claims.

The new study, led by researchers from the University of Southern California, UCLA and Cleveland Clinic, included 10,005 people who had COVID-19 and 217,730 people who did not become infected between February 1, 2020 and December 31, 2020.

The study began when COVID-19 vaccinations were not yet widely available. Because only a small number of Americans had received a COVID-19 shot by the end of December 2020, the study included only those who had not been vaccinated.

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The researchers said they looked for links between the severity of COVID-19 infections and major cardiac events for about three years. What they found was that a hospitalization caused by COVID-19 puts people at a similar, if not higher, risk of future strokes, heart attacks and other problems as someone with heart disease.

The study also found that people with non-O blood types were at particularly higher risk of cardiac events.

“We’re trying to rule out other alternative explanations, but it looks like there really is something biological going on with these specific blood types,” said Hooman Allayee, lead author of the study and professor at USC.

The new data can help doctors determine whether a person is at higher risk for a cardiac event.

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“This study underscores that we must consider the history of prior COVID-19 infections when formulating preventive plans and goals for cardiovascular disease,” said co-senior author Stanley Hazen, director of the Center for Cardiovascular Diagnostics and Prevention from the Cleveland Clinic.