Though a good portion of these patients already had underlying health issues involving the heart, like heart disease or high blood pressure, many otherwise healthy patients have also developed heart problems, including blood vessel injuries, blood clots, arrhythmia, strokes, and heart attacks.
The high incidence of cardiac problems in patients who contract the coronavirus has had physicians stumped: How could a respiratory infection inflict so much damage on the heart?
Now, researchers are beginning to understand why the coronavirus causes heart conditions.
According to a new study published in the journal Frontiers in Cardiovascular Medicine, it boils down to a few factors: the widespread inflammation the infection causes, the possibility that the virus directly infects and injures the cardiovascular system, and the overall stress the infection puts on preexisting heart conditions.
Still, more research is needed to confirm exactly how the coronavirus affects heart function, and which patients with COVID-19 are most at risk for running into heart troubles.
One of the key problems associated with COVID-19 is the amount of inflammation the infection causes.
According to health experts, this level of inflammation occurs due to a phenomenon called a “cytokine storm,” in which the immune system produces too big of a response against a virus.
Instead of solely attacking the virus, the immune cells injure healthy cells, too, spurring inflammation.
A big inflammatory response can put a lot of stress on the heart, making the heart work harder to pump blood throughout the body as the body fights off the infection.
“In terms of the heart, when there is a cytokine storm, the excess of cytokines can lead to fulminant myocarditis (inflammation of the heart), with heart muscle cell necrosis or death,” says Dr. Joyce M. Oen-Hsiao, the director of clinical cardiology at Yale Medicine, adding that this can lead to problems with heart function and heart failure.
Those who have a more intense inflammatory response seem more likely to develop serious heart troubles and have a higher risk of dying from COVID-19, the study’s lead author Shuyang Zhang, a cardiology professor at Peking Union Medical College Hospital Beijing, China, said in a statement. ♦
