As we all know there are certain risk factors which make the COVID-19 virus even more dangerous. The one right at the top of the list is being above the age of 65 years and having compromised lungs since this virus is primarily affects the lungs. Other factors include people who are immunocompromised, have serious heart conditions, are obese, have diabetes or have liver disease. But it is also important to look at the flip side, and understand how the virus can affect and cause problems in other parts of the body.
In this discussion I would like to talk to about the cardiovascular burden of coronavirus. Even though SARS-CoV-2 mainly infects the epithelial cells in the lung, the traces of this virus can also be found in respiratory, fecal, and blood specimens. According to a recent study published in the International Journal of Cardiology, coronaviruses have been shown to cause direct myocardial injury. COVID-19 particularly can cause cardiac injury via multiple mechanisms. One of the proposed mechanism considers the indirect effect of an overwhelming immune inflammatory response and cytokine storm. Another mechanism could be myocardial injury due to increased oxygen demand when there is acute lung injury. This theory is further supported by the finding that there are ACE-2 receptors in the heart. There have been some studies which show that cardiac injury is more common in critically ill patients. They show that 23% of critically ill patients develop cardiac injury and 33% of patients develop cardiomyopathy.
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC7102656/ (Links to an external site.)
https://www.cdc.gov/coronavirus/2019-ncov/need-extra-precautions/groups-at-higher-risk.html (Links to an external site.)
- By: Sanya Bansal