Researchers confirm COVID patients can suffer serious cardiac complications

Researchers confirm COVID patients can suffer serious cardiac complications

Transcript¹

After recovering from the initial illness, some COVID-19 patients suffer serious complications such as heart attacks and strokes. A study has quantified the risks up to a year later.

A MARTINEZ, HOST:

After recovering from COVID, some patients are now suffering from serious cardiovascular complications, such as heart attacks and strokes, even if they never had any prior issues. Doctors first started noticing a trend, then a new study confirmed what they are observing and quantifies the risks of this happening up to a year later. NPR's Will Stone reports.

WILL STONE, BYLINE²: Robi Tamargo never worried much about her heart. She started running competitively in middle school. In college, she played field hockey and lacrosse, and she kept up exercising as she got older. Until the pandemic hit, she went to the gym every morning.

ROBI TAMARGO: And I was still very, very active in my community athletically⁴, so to have a heart condition was really quite shocking.

STONE: Tamargo is now 61 and lives in Florida. She's a clinical psychologist who was in the Navy before going into private practice. She got the coronavirus in the spring of 2020.

TAMARGO: I happened to catch it from an active-duty physician who didn't know yet that they had COVID.

STONE: It got bad quickly. She woke up at home to discover the left side of her face was numb⁵.

TAMARGO: The emergency room did imaging of my brain. I had a blood clot⁶ in my right middle cerebral⁷ artery⁸.

STONE: They gave her medications, which saved her from having a full-on stroke. But after being discharged, she kept developing new medical problems, like painful lung inflammation and horrible insomnia⁹. And then three months later...

TAMARGO: I suddenly developed atrial fibrillation. My heart was coming out of my chest.

STONE: It's a type of arrhythmia. They rushed her to the hospital.

TAMARGO: I spent 10 hours in the emergency room with them trying to chemically convert my heart back to a normal rhythm.

STONE: They succeeded, but she continued to have serious heart problems, like the time she traveled to New York City for long COVID treatment and trying to walk up a slight hill.

TAMARGO: I basically had to squat¹⁰ down on my heels in Manhattan because I couldn't breathe. My phone starts ringing. It is the cardiac monitor company that I'm wearing the cardiac monitor for checking to see where I was. And she said, you need to go to the hospital.

STONE: Tamargo is far from the only one with serious cardiovascular problems after getting COVID-19. That's according to the new study led by Dr. Ziyad Al-Aly of the St. Louis VA.

ZIYAD AL-ALY: We could sum it up in one sentence, that people with COVID-19 exhibited increased risk of heart problems even a year later after the initial infection.

STONE: Al-Aly and his co-authors at Washington University combed through VA medical records. They identified more than 150,000 people infected with coronavirus between March 2020 and January of last year. Then they compared those patients to match control groups made up of millions of other VA patients. The cardiovascular outcomes included different kinds of clots¹¹, arrhythmias, heart failure, inflammation of the heart muscles.

AL-ALY: This is really going to create a generation of people with heart problems.

STONE: For some of the most serious outcomes, including heart attack and stroke, the rate of those problems was 4% higher among the patients who had COVID.

AL-ALY: Even though, to some people, 4% is a single-digit number, it may seem small to some people, you have to multiply that by the huge number of people in the U.S. and many, many more around the world who experienced COVID-19 infection.

STONE: What was also striking was this increased risk turned up even among the people who were not hospitalized. And Al-Aly says it wasn't just happening to people who were already at high risk of heart disease.

AL-ALY: Even in young people, people who were previously¹² athletic³, people who never smoked, who were not obese¹³, people who never had diabetes¹⁴ or any problem with diabetes.

STONE: Cardiologists are taking notice. One of them is Dr. Harlan Krumholz at Yale who's been researching long COVID.

HARLAN KRUMHOLZ: I think that this is a wake-up call to us.

STONE: Krumholz says this new study is strong and comprehensive, but he also worries that it could create unnecessary anxiety.

KRUMHOLZ: In the end, you know, a small number of people end up getting cardiovascular disease. It's not like, oh, my gosh, everyone got COVID, and then the next thing you know, they all had heart attacks. That's not it.

STONE: Others have pointed¹⁵ out the study's limits. Dr. Betty Raman a cardiologist at the University of Oxford¹⁶, notes, as the authors do, the VA population studied was majority white and male, and it only reveals a correlation¹⁷. It can't prove cause and effect because of COVID. Finally, the study only covered the first year of the pandemic.

BETTY RAMAN: And since the vaccines¹⁸ have come into the picture, things are dramatically different, just in terms of the way the body is handling the infection.

STONE: She's hopeful vaccinated¹⁹ patients will have fewer cardiovascular problems. Dr. Peter Libby of Harvard says the findings do help get at the scale of the problem. He says inflammation that comes with the acute infection could be causing problems in the heart and blood vessels²⁰. And imaging studies have also revealed signs of scarring in the heart after COVID, which can then lead to arrhythmias.

PETER LIBBY: It doesn't take very big scar to predispose you to have arrhythmias. So fortunately, we have ways of dealing²¹ with that these days, but they're invasive. They have complications.

STONE: Some of this post-infection damage - it might turn out that other viruses can cause that, too. But with so many people infected by the coronavirus, the heart problems could be with us for a long time.

Will Stone, NPR News.

(SOUNDBITE OF HANNAH GREY'S "STILL WATERS")

1 transcript   

n.抄本，誊本，副本，肄业证书

参考例句：

• A transcript of the tapes was presented as evidence in court.一份录音带的文字本作为证据被呈交法庭。
• They wouldn't let me have a transcript of the interview.他们拒绝给我一份采访的文字整理稿。

2 byline   

n.署名；v.署名

参考例句：

• His byline was absent as well.他的署名也不见了。
• We wish to thank the author of this article which carries no byline.我们要感谢这篇文章的那位没有署名的作者。

3 athletic   

adj.擅长运动的，强健的；活跃的，体格健壮的

参考例句：

• This area has been marked off for athletic practice.这块地方被划出来供体育训练之用。
• He is an athletic star.他是一个运动明星。

4 athletically   

adv.竞赛地，运动比赛地，具运动员风范地

参考例句：

• Tall, athletically built, but with a slight, shy stoop to his shoulders. 高个子，运动员身材，但有点轻微的水蛇腰。 来自互联网
• She does not hate sports on TV, she is athletically biased. 她不讨厌体育频道，只是对运动有些偏见。 来自互联网

5 numb   

adj.麻木的，失去感觉的；v.使麻木

参考例句：

• His fingers were numb with cold.他的手冻得发麻。
• Numb with cold,we urged the weary horses forward.我们冻得发僵，催着疲惫的马继续往前走。

6 clot   

n.凝块；v.使凝成块

参考例句：

• Platelets are one of the components required to make blood clot.血小板是血液凝固的必须成分之一。
• The patient's blood refused to clot.病人的血液无法凝结。

7 cerebral   

adj.脑的，大脑的；有智力的，理智型的

参考例句：

• Your left cerebral hemisphere controls the right-hand side of your body.你的左半脑控制身体的右半身。
• He is a precise,methodical,cerebral man who carefully chooses his words.他是一个一丝不苟、有条理和理智的人，措辞谨慎。

8 artery   

n.干线，要道；动脉

参考例句：

• We couldn't feel the changes in the blood pressure within the artery.我们无法感觉到动脉血管内血压的变化。
• The aorta is the largest artery in the body.主动脉是人体中的最大动脉。

9 insomnia   

n.失眠，失眠症

参考例句：

• Worries and tenseness can lead to insomnia.忧虑和紧张会导致失眠。
• He is suffering from insomnia.他患失眠症。

10 squat   

v.蹲坐，蹲下；n.蹲下；adj.矮胖的，粗矮的

参考例句：

• For this exercise you need to get into a squat.在这次练习中你需要蹲下来。
• He is a squat man.他是一个矮胖的男人。

11 clots   

n.凝块( clot的名词复数 )；血块；蠢人；傻瓜v.凝固( clot的第三人称单数 )

参考例句：

• When you cut yourself, blood clots and forms a scab. 你割破了，血会凝固、结痂。 来自《简明英汉词典》
• Milk clots when it turns sour. 奶变酸就凝块。 来自《现代英汉综合大词典》

12 previously   

adv.以前，先前（地）

参考例句：

• The bicycle tyre blew out at a previously damaged point.自行车胎在以前损坏过的地方又爆开了。
• Let me digress for a moment and explain what had happened previously.让我岔开一会儿，解释原先发生了什么。

13 obese   

adj.过度肥胖的，肥大的

参考例句：

• The old man is really obese,it can't be healthy.那位老人确实过于肥胖了，不能算是健康。
• Being obese and lazy is dangerous to health.又胖又懒危害健康。

14 diabetes   

n.糖尿病

参考例句：

• In case of diabetes, physicians advise against the use of sugar.对于糖尿病患者，医生告诫他们不要吃糖。
• Diabetes is caused by a fault in the insulin production of the body.糖尿病是由体內胰岛素分泌失调引起的。

15 pointed   

adj.尖的，直截了当的

参考例句：

• He gave me a very sharp pointed pencil.他给我一支削得非常尖的铅笔。
• She wished to show Mrs.John Dashwood by this pointed invitation to her brother.她想通过对达茨伍德夫人提出直截了当的邀请向她的哥哥表示出来。

16 Oxford   

n.牛津（英国城市）

参考例句：

• At present he has become a Professor of Chemistry at Oxford.他现在已是牛津大学的化学教授了。
• This is where the road to Oxford joins the road to London.这是去牛津的路与去伦敦的路的汇合处。

17 correlation   

n.相互关系，相关，关连

参考例句：

• The second group of measurements had a high correlation with the first.第二组测量数据与第一组高度相关。
• A high correlation exists in America between education and economic position.教育和经济地位在美国有极密切的关系。

18 vaccines   

疫苗，痘苗( vaccine的名词复数 )

参考例句：

• His team are at the forefront of scientific research into vaccines. 他的小组处于疫苗科研的最前沿。
• The vaccines were kept cool in refrigerators. 疫苗放在冰箱中冷藏。

19 vaccinated   

[医]已接种的，种痘的，接种过疫菌的

参考例句：

• I was vaccinated against tetanus. 我接种了破伤风疫苗。
• Were you vaccinated against smallpox as a child? 你小时候打过天花疫苗吗？

20 vessels   

n.血管( vessel的名词复数 )；船；容器；（具有特殊品质或接受特殊品质的）人

参考例句：

• The river is navigable by vessels of up to 90 tons. 90 吨以下的船只可以从这条河通过。 来自《简明英汉词典》
• All modern vessels of any size are fitted with radar installations. 所有现代化船只都有雷达装置。 来自《现代汉英综合大词典》

21 dealing   

n.经商方法，待人态度

参考例句：

• This store has an excellent reputation for fair dealing.该商店因买卖公道而享有极高的声誉。
• His fair dealing earned our confidence.他的诚实的行为获得我们的信任。