“The cardiometabolic after effects of SARS-CoV-2 have been profound, persistent, and peculiar — really peculiar,” said cardiologist Susan Cheng, director of public health research at Cedars-Sinai’s Smidt Heart Institute in Los Angeles.
Not only did the pandemic result in the most deaths in a century, but it also triggered a wave of deadly cardiovascular and metabolic illness. While cases like Dowd’s were known from the start, mortality data of the last four years are now revealing the scale of the impact.
Scientists are still trying to figure out why. It’s unclear how many people died from Covid’s cardiovascular complications and how many died because of its indirect consequences, such as disrupted medical care and worsening rates of obesity and high blood pressure.
From 2020 to 2022, a quarter of a million more Americans over 35 years old succumbed to cardiovascular disease than predicted based on historical trends, according to Bloomberg analysis of data from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. In 2023, age-adjusted stroke mortality was almost 5% above pre-pandemic levels, according to preliminary data, while rates from deaths related to hypertensive heart disease, rhythm abnormalities, blood clots, diabetes and kidney failure were 15-28% higher. Covid had a muted impact on other common causes of death such as cancer and Alzheimer’s disease, the data show.
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