Researchers at the University of Queensland have found new clues in the blood of people suffering from long COVID that might explain why so many of them continue to experience heart problems.
These symptoms, including chest pain and rapid heartbeats, often persist long after recovering from the initial COVID-19 infection.
Associate Professor Kirsty Short, leading the study, wanted to understand why people with long COVID experience these ongoing heart issues. Many report feelings of discomfort or irregular heartbeats, even a year or more after getting over the virus.
The study examined blood samples from people about 18 months after their initial infection. The researchers found higher-than-normal levels of cytokines, which are small proteins that play a role in managing inflammation in the body.
Cytokines are usually part of our immune response to infections, helping to coordinate how our body responds. However, too many cytokines, or cytokines that stay active for too long, can lead to problems, including inflammation that doesn’t go away.
These elevated cytokines seem to have a direct impact on heart cells called cardiomyocytes, which are the cells responsible for making the heart pump blood.
When these cells don’t work as they should, it can cause cardiovascular symptoms, like chest pain or an irregular heartbeat. Cardiomyocytes are crucial to the heart’s health, so any damage to them can have a lasting impact on how well the heart functions.
This study is particularly interesting because it’s one of the first to clearly show how ongoing inflammation may be related to heart issues in people with long COVID, especially those whose symptoms have lasted for more than a year.
Although researchers have known that long COVID can affect the heart, the exact reason has not been well understood.
The study involved 50 people from across Australia. They fell into three groups: those who still had symptoms of long COVID more than a year after infection, those who had recovered from COVID-19, and those who had never been infected.
Researchers used advanced technology to analyze their blood at a very detailed level. This technology, called the “immuno-storm chip,” was developed at the Australian Institute for Bioengineering and Nanotechnology, a part of the University of Queensland.
This device allowed the scientists to detect even the smallest traces of cytokines in the blood. They also looked for markers that could indicate damage to heart tissue.
Although the findings are still preliminary, the research team believes their work sheds light on some important aspects of long COVID, offering new insights into what might be going on in the bodies of those affected by it.
Dr. Short emphasizes that more research is needed to confirm these findings and to study people who have had more recent strains of the virus. It is also unclear if similar inflammatory markers are found in patients with other long COVID symptoms, such as neurological or breathing problems.
The researchers focused on people who reported heart-related symptoms in this initial study, but they hope to expand the study to include other symptoms.
Even though this is just the beginning, the researchers hope these findings could improve how we understand and manage long COVID.
By identifying the presence of cytokines and their effect on heart cells, doctors may be able to better diagnose or treat heart-related issues in people with long COVID.
With more knowledge, researchers and healthcare providers can take steps toward helping patients recover more fully and possibly prevent long-term damage.
This research was made possible through the combined efforts of several organizations and universities across Australia.
The research team included Ph.D. students Jane Sinclair and Courtney Vedelago and Dr. Feargal J. Ryan from the South Australian Health and Medical Research Institute.
The team also collaborated with experts from other University of Queensland departments, including the School of Chemistry and Molecular Biosciences, the School of Mathematics and Physics, the Institute for Molecular Bioscience, and the Faculty of Medicine.
Other partners included Flinders University, the University of Adelaide, the Australian National University, and several health institutes.
The study relied on blood samples from COVID-related research programs, including the COVID OZGenetics study, the Central Adelaide Health Network, and the David Serisier Research Biobank.
While the results are promising, Dr. Short and her team acknowledge that it’s still early days. They hope that, with more studies and further testing, these discoveries will lead to better treatments and a deeper understanding of the long-term effects of COVID-19 on the heart and overall health.
If you care about heart disease, please read studies about a big cause of heart failure, and common blood test could advance heart failure treatment.
For more information about heart health, please see recent studies about a new way to repair human heart, and results showing drinking coffee may help reduce heart failure risk.
The research findings can be found in Nature Microbiology.
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