Coronavirus keeps bringing up new revelations every day, and by now we already know that Coronavirus is not just a simple respiratory disease but it can cause much more damage to many different organs.
Not the just the lungs, but it can also affect your heart, brain, blood, and so much more.
If you get Coronavirus, your heart will surely be affected
Two studies published in the journal of JAMA Cardiology have shown that Coronavirus can affect the health and well-being of the human heart in the long run, and even the people who survive Coronavirus without any major symptoms will have consequences to suffer at some point in their life.
Coronavirus is already killing people by causing cardiac infection in many people.
Dr Nieca Goldberg, the medical director of the NYU Women’s Heart Program said:
“We’ve understood for a few months now that Covid-19 is not only a respiratory infection but a multi-system infection.”
She added:
“There is an acute inflammatory response, increased blood clotting and cardiac involvement. And the cardiac involvement can either be due to direct involvement of the heart muscle by the infection and its inflammatory response. It could be due to blood clots that are formed, causing an obstruction of arteries.”
This is how the Coronavirus actually affects the heart
According to Dr Goldberg, this is how the Coronavirus affects the heart:
“Sometimes people have very fast heart rates that can, over time, weaken the heart muscle, reduce the heart muscle function. So there are multiple ways during this infection that it can involve the heart.”
The study stated that among the people who recovered from Coronavirus, 78% showed some cardiac problems according to their MRI scans and 60% of the people were suffering heart inflammation according to their blood tests and biopsy of the heart tissue.
Even the people without any preexisting heart conditions were found to have heart complications post their recovery from Coronavirus. It also didn’t matter whether they were severely affected by the Coronavirus or not.
The most common condition seen was the abnormal inflammation of the heart, also known as the myocardial inflammation, which weakens the heart muscle. This is usually caused by viral infections.
Coronavirus was found in the heart tissue of the dead people
Other study found that the Coronavirus was actually detected inside the heart tissue of the people who died from COVID-19. Even the patients who didn’t have heart inflammation, had the virus in their heart. Researchers say they are not sure what this means.
Although, they point out that these studies were done on a small sample size and majority of patients observed were elderly people. Another study needs to be done which involves younger people, so that we can get a clear idea of what this all means.
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