Eine Überprüfung von 155 wissenschaftlichen Studien ergab, dass Grippe- und COVID-Infektionen das Risiko eines Herzinfarkts oder Schlaganfalls in den Wochen nach der Erstinfektion um das Drei- bis Fünffache erhöhten.

In the weeks following a bout of influenza or COVID, the risk of heart attack or stroke may rise dramatically, and chronic infections such as HIV may increase the long-term risk of serious cardiovascular disease events, according to new, independent research published today in the Journal of the American Heart Association, an open access, peer-reviewed journal of the American Heart Association.

“It is well recognized that human papillomavirus (HPV), hepatitis B virus and other viruses can cause cancer; however, the link between viral infections and other non-communicable diseases, such as cardiovascular disease, is less well understood,” said Kosuke Kawai, Sc.D., lead author of the study and adjunct associate professor in the division of general internal medicine and health services research at the David Geffen School of Medicine at the University of California, Los Angeles. “Our study found acute and chronic viral infections are linked to both short- and long-term risks of cardiovascular disease, including strokes and heart attacks.”

The researchers set out to systematically review all published studies that investigated the association between any viral infection and the risk of stroke and heart attack, initially screening more than 52,000 publications and identifying 155 as appropriately designed and of high quality allowing for meta-analysis of the combined data.

In studies that compared people’s cardiovascular risks in the weeks following documented respiratory infection vs. the same people’s risk when they did not have the infection, researchers found:

People are 4 times as likely to have a heart attack and 5 times more likely to have a stroke in the month after laboratory-confirmed influenza.

People are 3 times more likely to have a heart attack and 3 times as likely to have a stroke in the 14 weeks following COVID infection, with the risk remaining elevated for a year.

The immune system’s natural response to viral infections includes the release of molecules that trigger and sustain inflammation and promote the tendency of blood to clot, both of which may last long after the initial infection has been resolved. Both inflammation and blood clotting can reduce the ability of the heart to function properly and may help explain the increased heart attack and stroke risk

https://www.ahajournals.org/doi/10.1161/JAHA.125.042670