COVID-19 appears to accelerate the aging of blood vessels, but possibly only in women, reports New Scientist, writes UNN.
Details
Previously, this infection was linked to cardiovascular complications, such as heart disease, but the mechanism of this effect is not fully understood. To learn more, Rosa Maria Bruno from Paris Cité University in France and her colleagues recruited 2,390 people, with an average age of 50, from 16 countries, including the UK and USA, between September 2020 and February 2022.
Some of them tested positive for SARS-CoV-2, the virus that causes COVID-19, or had antibodies to it, despite not being vaccinated, which is a sign of infection. Others tested negative for the virus and showed no signs of previous infection.
The condition of the arteries was assessed by measuring the pulse wave velocity between the carotid artery in the neck and the femoral arteries in the legs. This is an indicator of arterial stiffness, which naturally increases with age, and less flexible arteries increase the risk of cardiovascular disease.
The researchers found that in women participating in the study, known SARS-CoV-2 infection was associated with increased arterial stiffness. This trend appeared to increase with the severity of the infection. For example, in women hospitalized with COVID-19, vascular age was approximately five years older than in uninfected individuals, and in those admitted to the intensive care unit, it reached 7.5 years.
The researchers accounted for other factors that can affect arterial stiffness, such as smoking and obesity.
However, none of these effects were observed in men. Previous studies show that women react more strongly to infections than men and have more difficulty controlling their immune response, which can lead to destructive inflammation. Bruno says she expected to see some difference between the sexes, but not such a significant one.
The study results may also shed light on long COVID, which appears to be most common in women. After six months of follow-up, arterial stiffness in women improved slightly but remained particularly high in those with long-term COVID-19 complications. "We have shown that there is something measurable in the blood vessels that corresponds to the symptoms of patients with long COVID," says Bruno.
It is possible that some of the uninfected groups were unaware of it and had a mild form of the infection, which affected the reliability of the results.
Nevertheless, Vassilios Vassiliou from the University of East Anglia in the UK believes the study is robust and can help identify people with long COVID. "This study is the first large international multicenter study to demonstrate the association of COVID-19 with accelerated vascular aging," he says. "The results obtained can contribute to a better understanding of the mechanisms of post-COVID syndrome development, potentially paving the way for targeted pharmacological interventions."