Long-term heart damage is likely in some survivors of Covid-19, a team of doctors reported Monday.
The doctors found that Covid-19 dysregulates the way the blood clots, and damages the lungs and their ability to process fresh oxygen into the blood, they wrote in a review for the American College of Cardiology.
Patients who have had to undergo ventilation — and the medicated sedation that goes along with that — are most in danger, wrote Dr. Sean Pinney of the Icahn School of Medicine at Mount Sinai and his colleagues.
The doctors noted that about a third of survivors of the closely-related severe acute respiratory syndrome (SARS) virus in 2003-2004 had persistently abnormal lung function a year after illness, with lower exercise capacity — and Covid-19 appears to damage the heart even more.
A second study noted a kind of damage to the heart known as myocardial injury in about a quarter of coronavirus patients.
A third study in the same journal noted that patients with excess body fat, uncontrolled blood sugar, high blood pressure and high cholesterol face much higher risks of complications from coronavirus. Many Americans have all four problems.
