Long term heart problems after COVID cause increasing concern

Five months post-covid, Nicole Murphy's heart rate is still doing strange things Five months after being infected with the coronavirus, Nicole Murphy's pulse rate is going berserk. Normally in the 70s, which is ideal, it has been jumping to 160, 170 and sometimes 210 beats per minute even when she is at rest - putting her at risk of a heart attack, heart failure or stroke. No one seems to be able to pinpoint why. She's only 44, never had heart issues, and when a cardiologist near her hometown of Wellsville, Ohio, ran all of the standard tests, "he literally threw up his hand YahooNews

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Murphy's boomeranging heart rate is one of a number of mysterious conditions afflicting Americans weeks or months after coronavirus infections that suggest the potential of a looming cardiac crisis.

A pivotal study that looked at health records of more than 153,000 U.S. veterans published this month in Nature Medicine found that their risk of cardiovascular disease of all types increased substantially in the year following infection, even when they had mild cases. The population studied was mostly White and male, but the patterns held even when the researchers analyzed women and people of color separately. When experts factor in the heart damage probably suffered by people who put off medical care, more sedentary lifestyles and eating changes, not to mention the stress of the pandemic, they estimate there may be millions of new onset cardiac cases related to the virus, plus a worsening of disease for many already affected.

"We are expecting a tidal wave of cardiovascular events in the coming years from direct and indirect causes of covid," said Donald Lloyd-Jones, president of the American Heart Association.

In February 2020, the National Institutes of Health launched an initiative to look at the causes and possible treatments for long covid, the constellation of symptoms from brain fog and exercise fatigue to heart-related issues that some people experience well past their initial infections. In addition, the American College of Cardiology has recognized the serious, longer-term effects of the coronavirus by preparing new guidelines, scheduled out in March, for monitoring and returning to exercise after infection. But many experts and patient advocacy groups say more is needed, and are calling on President Joe Biden and other leaders for comprehensive changes in the health care system that would provide more funding for research and treatment, financial support for people who can no longer work and address the social and emotional consequences of illness in the decades to come.

Zaza Soriano, 32, a software engineer from Millersville, Md., who works for a NASA subcontractor, got covid right before Christmas despite being fully vaccinated and boosted, and since then, her blood pressure has remained very high with the bottom number, or diastolic pressure when the heart rests between beats sometimes as high as 110 when it should be lower than 80. She also has brain fog and her joints ache.

"It's so frustrating we still know so little about why this is happening," she said.

Ziyad Al-Aly, an assistant professor of medicine at Washington University and a Veterans Affairs physician who co-authored the Nature Medicine study, describes the pandemic as an earthquake. "When the earth stops shaking and the dust settles, we will have to be able to deal with the aftermath on heart and other organ systems," he said.

"Governments around the world need to pay attention," Al-Aly emphasized. "We are not sufficiently prepared." ...