Covvi -19 seems to age blood vessels – but only among women

Covid-19 seems to accelerate the aging of blood vessels, but perhaps only among women.

The infection has previously been linked to cardiovascular complications, such as heart disease, but how it has this effect is not quite clear. To learn more, Rosa Maria Bruno recruited at University Paris Cité in France and her colleagues 2390 people aged 50 from 16 countries – including Britain and the United States – between September 2020 and February 2022.

Some of them had tested positively for the SARS-COV-2, the virus that causes Covid-19, or had antibodies against it despite not being vaccinated, a sign that had been infected. The others had only ever tested the virus and had no signs of prior infection.

The health of their arteries was assessed by measuring how quickly a pressure wave passed between the carota artery in their throat and the femoral arteries in their legs. This is a measure of arterial stiffness that increases naturally with age, with less flexible arteries that increase the risk of heart disease.

The researchers found that among the women in the study, a well-known SARS-COV-2 infection was associated with rigid arteries. This also looks at Increse along with the severity of their infection. For example, women who were hospitalized with Covid-19 had a vascular age surrounded by five-year-old Thanir Uninfecté colleagues who rose to 7.5 years among those admitted to intensive care.

Researchers controlled for other factors that may affect arterial stiffness, such as smoking and obesity.

But none of these effects occurred among the men. Previous research suggests that women respond stronger to infections than men and are less capable of calling down their immune response, which can lead to harmful inflammation. Bruno says she expected to see differently between the sexes, but not so much.

The results could also shed light on long covid, which appears to be more common among women. At a six-month follow-up, the stiffness of women’s arteries had improved slightly, but was still particularly high among those with lingering Covid-19-related complications. “Here we have demonstrated that there is something measurable in the blood vessels that match the symptoms of long cooled patients,” says Bruno.

It is possible that some of the people in the uninfected group may have unknown unknown a mild infection that transfers the validity of the results.

Nevertheless, Vassilios Vassiliou at the University of East Anglia in the UK says the study is robust and can help identify people with long Covid. “The study is the first major international multicenter study to demonstrate that Covid-19 is associated with accelerated vascular aging,” he says. “The results can also contribute to a better mechanistic understanding of syndrome after Covid-19, which potentially paved the way for targeted pharmacological interventions.”