Heart disease rises after CV-19

Investment Analysis Clubs Macro Economic Trends and Risks
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https://www.nature.com/articles/d41586-022-00403-0?utm_sourc…

**Heart-disease risk soars after COVID — even with a mild case**
**Massive study shows a long-term, substantial rise in risk of cardiovascular disease, including heart attack and stroke, after a SARS-CoV-2 infection.**

**Saima May Sidik, Nature, 10 February 2022**

**Even a mild case of COVID-19 can increase a person’s risk of cardiovascular problems for at least a year after diagnosis, a new study1 shows. Researchers found that rates of many conditions, such as heart failure and stroke, were substantially higher in people who had recovered from COVID-19 than in similar people who hadn’t had the disease.**

**What’s more, the risk was elevated even for those who were under 65 years of age and lacked risk factors, such as obesity, diabetes or smoking....**

**The researchers compared more than 150,000 veterans who survived for at least 30 days after contracting COVID-19 with two groups of uninfected people: a group of more than five million people who used the VA medical system during the pandemic, and a similarly sized group that used the system in 2017, before SARS-CoV-2 was circulating....** [end quote]

This is a gigantic data set, so the results are highly reliable.

Covid-19 survivors were 52% more likely to have had a stroke than the contemporary control group, meaning that, out of every 1,000 people studied, there were around 4 more people in the COVID-19 group than in the control group who experienced stroke.

The risk of heart failure increased by 72%, or around 12 more people in the COVID-19 group per 1,000 studied.

So far, the U.S. has reported 77,531,295 Covid cases. This would add about 310,000 additional strokes and 930,000 additional cases of heart failure. That’s a Macroeconomic problem since these are expensive chronic conditions. The 917,140 reported deaths are tragic but less costly than the chronically sick survivors who will be burdening the health care system for who knows how long.

Wendy

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Wendy,

That is a hell of a finding.

I am less inclined to return to regular hanging out in public for another six months. Let Covid pass if it will.

The fallout for those who have been infected can show up decades later. It can go beyond this finding.

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Wendy,

Thanks for your valuable OP. I have not seen that elsewhere and it is extremely relevant and actionable in my own life.

Three months ago my HIV doctor here in Mexico (he is a federally employed Public Health worker of the the sort that do not exist in the USA) basically ordered me to become extremely paranoid about Covid. Because he and most HIV Public Health workers have been drafted to cope with Covid, I have not seen him except to wave in passing when I go to the Public Health clinic to get my (free) HIV suppressing drugs, but during a phone conference with me after reviewing my latest (free) excellent immunological and HIV (none detectable) blood tests he said (translating and remembering as best I can) something like (some doctors can speak in bold and italics and mine does)

"We still know almost nothing about the disastrous effects of this disease beyond its deadly virulence, high death rates from obvious symptoms, tendency to mutate nastily and quickly, and that it causes a huge spectrum of mostly unnoticed bad long term horrible effects in the organs of many people. You are my oldest longest surviving patient, and as your Doctor I NOW ORDER YOU to do everything you can to not get this disease.

I am doubling down not only on not getting a bad case, but on just plain old Not Getting It.

David fb

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I am doubling down not only on not getting a bad case, but on just plain old Not Getting It.

Some people are for “natural immunity”. It boils down to gaining immunity by getting infected and recovering. It’s protection from infection through infection. In other words, it’s burning the village in order to save it.

One problem with this is the inability to pick and choose one’s viral load. Even with the benefit of 20-20 hindsight, there’s no way of knowing what the viral load was at a particular venue or how much of a viral load anyone was exposed to. Even if there were a way to know EXACTLY what the viral load is like in the air at a particular venue, there’s no way of knowing how much one’s immune system can handle.

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DopplerValue

Exactly! Especially the centrality and current ignorance of viral load stats and implications.

David fb

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The Standard American Diet makes the pandemic worse in so many ways. (Poor compliance with even the official precautions is the other big factor.)

The pandemic motivated me to avoid all junk foods and restaurant foods. I suspect that the biggest benefit will be losing my taste for some of my old favorites, which will give me more motivation to eat a healthier diet. Unfortunately, it seems that most of the population has maintained or increased junk food consumption.

Obesity, cancer, diabetes, and heart disease are all co-morbidities for COVID-19. Bad diets multiply the risks of all these diseases.

Unhealthy foods weaken the immune system, which undermines the body’s ability to fight off viruses and thus increases the risk of infection. Unhealthy foods promote inflammation, which can lead to the cytokine/bradykinin storm behind the deadly cases. Inflammation is also said to be the mechanism behind long COVID.

In spite of the news that COVID-19 increases the risk of heart disease, there’s STILL no national dialogue about the dangers of the Standard American Diet. Consuming a healthier diet is now even more important than ever, yet there still isn’t any mass movement away from unhealthy foods.

Someday, today’s excessive junk food consumption will be perceived in a similar light as the chain-smoking of the 1950s is perceived today. Unfortunately, that someday may be centuries away.