A new study published in Nature Biology shows that long COVID may have long-term implications for heart health. It is no secret that chronic inflammation is bad for heart health. However, this new study shows that even low-grade persistent inflammation after recovering from viral infections like COVID may also adversely impact heart health.
The COVID epidemic might be over, but it is still not uncommon. What is worrisome about this infection is that it causes long COVID in many individuals. In fact, prolonged weakness is not rare with different viral infections.
Long COVID may last for several months to even years. It causes extreme tiredness, brain fog, mood and sleep changes, body aches, and more. Many people also continue to complain about irregular heartbeat and digestive issues after recovering from acute COVID infection.
This new study was done by researchers from the University of Queensland. In the study, researchers could identify elevated levels of inflammatory proteins, particularly cytokines, even after 18 months of primary infection.
Though levels of these cytokines were only slightly elevated, but they were enough to cause cardiovascular issues. Lab studies found that muscle cells of the heart were particularly sensitive to these inflammatory proteins. Damage to cardiomyocytes caused by low levels of cytokines may explain why many develop heart conditions after recovering from the infection.
In the study, researchers enrolled 50 patients who had recovered from COVID, and compared their blood reports to those who never had the infection. They monitored these patients for 18 months, and they were complaining of symptoms characteristic of long-COVID.
In long COVID, cytokines are often elevated very little. These trace cytokines are difficult to monitor using regular methods or lab tests. Thus, for the research, a special “immune-storm chip” was developed using nanotechnology. These chips could also monitor for biomarkers of cardiac tissue damage.
These are surely very early findings, and they must still be validated in other studies. Nonetheless, it opens doors for other studies.
For example, it is no secret that many other infections also cause symptoms similar to long COVID. Many people continue to experience chronic fatigue and pain, along with heart and other health issues, long after recovering from the infection. However, to date, science has not been able to explain the underlying mechanism of these chronic issues that occur after the recovery from specific infections.
So, this new technology opens the door for further investigations. It may help better understand many chronic health issues. Thus, researchers can use this technology to understand neurological and respiratory conditions that persist in many people after recovering from COVID or even other infections.
Though the present study still has limited implications for clinical practice, it provides hope. This technology may help understand numerous chronic conditions, especially those causing chronic pain and fatigue. It may provide a reliable way of diagnosing those conditions that are challenging to diagnose using present lab tests.
Not only that but once we have a reliable way to diagnose chronic health issues, it will be easier to find effective treatments for those conditions.
Source:
Sinclair, J. E., Vedelago, C., Ryan, F. J., Carney, M., Redd, M. A., Lynn, M. A., Grubor-Bauk, B., Cao, Y., Henders, A. K., Chew, K. Y., Gilroy, D., Greaves, K., Labzin, L., Ziser, L., Ronacher, K., Wallace, L. M., Zhang, Y., Macauslane, K., Ellis, D. J., … Short, K. R. (2024). Post-acute sequelae of SARS-CoV-2 cardiovascular symptoms are associated with trace-level cytokines that affect cardiomyocyte function. Nature Microbiology, 9(12), 3135–3147. https://doi.org/10.1038/s41564-024-01838-z
Gurpreet Singh Padda , MD, MBA, MHP
