Risk for Cardiovascular Disease Increased in Adults With Long COVID

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By Elana Gotkine HealthDay Reporter

Medically reviewed by Carmen Pope, BPharm. Last updated on April 13, 2026.

via HealthDay

MONDAY, April 13, 2026 -- Individuals with long COVID have an increased risk for developing cardiovascular disease, according to a study published online April 1 in eClinicalMedicine.

Pia Lindberg, from the Karolinska Institutet in Stockholm, and colleagues examined the incidence of major cardiovascular events in individuals with and without long COVID in a population-based cohort. Individuals aged 18 to 65 years with a physician-assigned long COVID diagnosis between October 2020 and January 2025 were identified.

Overall, 8,999 (0.7 percent) of the 1,217,693 individuals in the cohort had long COVID. The researchers found that the cumulative incidence of any cardiovascular event was higher in the long COVID group versus the control group (18.2 versus 8.4 percent for women; 20.6 versus 11.1 percent for men). Long COVID was associated with the composite cardiovascular outcome in a fully adjusted model (hazard ratios, 2.06 and 1.33 for women and men, respectively), as well as with cardiac arrhythmias (hazard ratios, 3.11 and 1.61 for women and men, respectively) and coronary artery disease (hazard ratios, 1.25 and 1.26 for women and men, respectively). Only women had elevated heart failure incidence (hazard ratio, 1.25) and peripheral artery disease (hazard ratio, 1.25). In neither sex was long COVID associated with stroke.

"Our results show that long COVID can be a risk factor for cardiovascular disease, even in younger people who were previously healthy," Lindberg said in a statement. "This underlines the need for structured follow-up that takes gender differences into account, particularly as cardiovascular disease in women often presents with more diffuse symptoms that can make diagnosis more difficult."

Several authors disclosed ties to LINK Medical.

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Disclaimer: Statistical data in medical articles provide general trends and do not pertain to individuals. Individual factors can vary greatly. Always seek personalized medical advice for individual healthcare decisions.

Source: HealthDay

Posted : 2026-04-14 02:09

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