A new study published today in the journal PLOS Medicine found that patients infected with COVID-19 have an increased risk of developing cardiovascular diseases and diabetes, particularly in the three months following infection.

Patients infected with COVID-19 have a higher risk of cardiovascular disease and diabetes, especially in the three months after infection, according to a study published today in PLOS Medicine by Emma Rezel-Potts, Martin Gulliford, and colleagues of King’s College London, UK.

COVID-19 is increasingly becoming recognized by scientists as a multi-system disorder that can cause disease throughout the body, most likely through activating pathways that induce inflammation. This is a shift from previous understandings of COVID-19.

Researchers in the latest study looked at whether a sample of COVID-19 patients had greater risks of diabetes and cardiovascular disease recurrence than a group of individuals who had never had the conditions in the year after infection.

They examined the anonymized medical records of 428,000 COVID-19 patients and a control group of patients who were matched for age, sex, and family practice.

According to the investigation, patients with COVID-19 had 81 percent more diabetes diagnoses in the first four weeks following infection and their risk remained elevated by 27 percent for as long as 12 weeks.

COVID-19 was also linked to a six-fold increase in cardiovascular diagnoses overall. This was mostly due to the development of pulmonary embolism (blood clots in the lungs) and irregular heartbeat.

Within 12 to 24 weeks of infection, the odds of receiving a new diagnosis of heart disease started to fall and recovered to baseline levels or below.

The researchers came to the conclusion that COVID-19 infection is linked to a higher risk of heart disease and diabetes, but there doesn’t seem to be a long-term increase in the number of people who get these conditions after getting the virus.

These results support the recommendation that physicians counsel COVID-19 survivors to lower their risk of developing diabetes by following a healthy diet and engaging in regular exercise.

“The information provided by this very large population-based study on the longer-term effects of COVID-19 on development of cardiovascular conditions and diabetes will be extremely valuable to doctors managing the millions of people who have had COVID-19 by now,” says Coauthor Ajay Shah, adding “It is clear that particular vigilance is required for at least the first 3 months after COVID-19.”

“Use of a large, national database of electronic health records from primary care,” the study’s lead author, Emma Rezel-Potts, writes in her conclusion, “has enabled us to characterise the risk of cardiovascular disease and diabetes mellitus during the acute and longer-term phases following Covid-19 infection.”

“Whilst it is in the first four weeks that Covid-19 patients are most at risk of these outcomes, the risk of diabetes mellitus remains increased for at least 12 weeks. 

“Clinical and public health interventions focusing on reducing diabetes risk among those recovering from Covid-19 over the longer term may be very beneficial.”

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