New research led by Cleveland Clinic and the University of Southern California reveals that a history of COVID-19 significantly increases the risk of heart attack, stroke, and death. According to the study, individuals who contracted COVID-19 are twice as likely to experience major cardiac events for up to three years following their diagnosis.
The findings indicate that the risk is especially pronounced in patients who were hospitalized due to COVID-19. In fact, this hospitalization factor is a stronger predictor of future cardiac events than a prior history of heart disease. Additionally, the research highlights a notable correlation between blood type and cardiovascular risk; those with blood types A, B, or AB face double the risk of adverse cardiovascular events compared to individuals with type O blood.
Published in the journal Arteriosclerosis, Thrombosis, and Vascular Biology, this study utilized data from the UK Biobank, analyzing health records from 10,005 COVID-19 patients alongside 217,730 individuals who were not infected between February and December 2020.
Dr. Stanley Hazen, co-senior author of the study and chair of Cardiovascular and Metabolic Sciences at Cleveland Clinic’s Lerner Research Institute, emphasized the global significance of these findings. “With over a billion people having experienced COVID-19 worldwide, these results are not trivial,” he stated. “The data point to a critical public health issue that could lead to an increase in cardiovascular diseases globally.”
The researchers also conducted genetic analyses to determine if known genetic variants associated with coronary artery disease and heart attacks contributed to the heightened risk observed after COVID-19 infection. However, they found no significant links between these variants and increased cardiovascular events post-COVID-19. Instead, the data underscored the association between elevated risk and blood type.
Previous studies have indicated that individuals with non-O blood types (A, B, AB) were more susceptible to contracting COVID-19 in the first place. Dr. Hazen remarked on the broader implications of these findings: “While COVID-19 is primarily an upper respiratory infection, it has various health ramifications. This underscores the importance of considering a patient’s history of COVID-19 when developing cardiovascular disease prevention strategies.”
Dr. Hooman Allayee from USC’s Keck School of Medicine, who also served as co-senior author of the paper, noted that their findings have significant clinical implications. “Our data suggest that heart attack and stroke risks are particularly elevated among COVID-19 patients with A, B, or AB blood types,” he explained. “Considering that 60% of the global population has these non-O blood types, our study raises important questions about whether more aggressive cardiovascular risk reduction strategies should be implemented based on an individual’s genetic background.”
The authors concluded that the long-term risks associated with COVID-19 continue to represent a substantial public health challenge and call for further investigation into these findings.
This research received support from various National Institutes of Health grants.
Disclosures: Dr. Hazen holds patents related to cardiovascular diagnostics and therapeutics at Cleveland Clinic.
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