Was reverse causation considered? Those with some heart damage are more likely to be tested and hospitalized for COVID-19?
Article addresses this
Mysterious heart damage, not just lung troubles, befalling Covid-19 patients
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Re: Mysterious heart damage, not just lung troubles, befalling Covid-19 patients
#22Disclaimer: I’m not a medical professional.
My understanding is that myocarditis is a possible, albeit rare, complication of many viral illnesses?
Additionally, respiratory failure causes a massive strain on the heart, so it’s not hugely surprising that many patients would have heart complications.
It would be interesting to know how many patients without respiratory distress develop these cardiac symptoms.
Re: Mysterious heart damage, not just lung troubles, befalling Covid-19 patients
#23There is a paper circulating that claims that the virus impedes red blood cells leading to organ failure including lungs, and not the other way round.
That paper uses computer models of protein interactions not actual ethyrocyte on vero 6 cultured COVID experiment. It's an interesting line of investigation but I want to see more in vitro and ideally in vivo findings supporting that before I believe it.
Re: Mysterious heart damage, not just lung troubles, befalling Covid-19 patients
#24is this 1 in 5 in people who are otherwise asymptomatic as well? I guess not, or we would be seeing a lot more dead but I wonder if there are any heart attacks occurring in otherwise asymptomatic people and not being marked down as Covid-19 related.
>I wonder if there are any heart attacks occurring in otherwise asymptomatic people and not being marked down as Covid-19 related.
Possible but also important to keep in mind that heart damage does not necessarily translate into an immediate heart attack. It can lead to reduced heart function and a host of other heart-related problems that may not manifest in the form of a fatality for years (if ever). The same goes for the reported lung damage that many Covid-19 victims apparently suffer.
Re: Mysterious heart damage, not just lung troubles, befalling Covid-19 patients
#25Earlier quoted context omitted.
we are seeing a lot more dead in heavily affected regions. and there is no statistics about why they died... Personally I think this is quite worrying with a lot of people now thinking we put masks on and then can go back to work. If this is indeed having serious side effects, we need to eradicate this. Meaning total lockdown except absolute necessities (e.g. ask: will people die of physical reasons if this service i…
Won't happen. We can't go in lockdown for 2 or three years..
This is the most heart wrenching thing - total local victory is only buying time
Re: Mysterious heart damage, not just lung troubles, befalling Covid-19 patients
#26is this 1 in 5 in people who are otherwise asymptomatic as well? I guess not, or we would be seeing a lot more dead but I wonder if there are any heart attacks occurring in otherwise asymptomatic people and not being marked down as Covid-19 related.
The early claim of "1 in 5 people" is a lie. Further along they clarify that it is 1 in 5 people who are hospitalized. And they say about half die. Put this together with the real world mortality statistics, and it makes me want to see some rigorous peer review before I get worried.
Re: Mysterious heart damage, not just lung troubles, befalling Covid-19 patients
#27Earlier quoted context omitted.
Won't happen. We can't go in lockdown for 2 or three years..
This is the most heart wrenching thing - total local victory is only buying time
That's all any of this has ever been about, whether or not people want to admit it to themselves.
We are trying to hold the fort until reinforcements (better treatments, vaccines, etc) arrive.
Re: Mysterious heart damage, not just lung troubles, befalling Covid-19 patients
#28This headline is definitely a lot scarier than the actual body of the study.
The most likely cause of the heart damage by far is the systemic inflammation induced by pneumonia. We know this because pneumonia patients of all types often have heart strain afterwards[1]. But that damage is very rarely permanent as the risk subsides back to baseline given enough time.
Until we see evidence of heart issues in patients without pneumonia complications, we shouldn't be any more scared of covid-19 as we were before. In particular young and healthy people still have very little risk from infection. Patients who recover without serious complications should not be afraid of hidden heart damage.
[1] https://www.health.harvard.edu/heart-health/heart-attack-ris...
Re: Mysterious heart damage, not just lung troubles, befalling Covid-19 patients
#29One factor to consider: Some folks will be absolutely terrified to learn they have this disease, which may have real effects. An example: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Voodoo_death “These data suggest that vagus contributes to severe emotional states and may be related to emotional states of immobilization, such as extreme terror. Unfortunately, this immobilization technique is potentially life-threatening for mamm…
That implies a low heart rate causing death, correct? If so, this would be an easy hypothesis to test based on heart rate. But also, do the rats in voodoo death have heart damage? These covid patients do. If the rats don’t, then you’re quite off track.
It's just one example of a heart-related effect, that's all. Considering that we're all here reading another hypothesis that this is the first-ever respiratory pathogen to infect the heart, it doesn't seem that much of a stretch.
We totally should research whether fear can lead to physical heart damage, but I would bet that "stress in general" is the source of this damage, not only emotional stress. See:
Re: Mysterious heart damage, not just lung troubles, befalling Covid-19 patients
#30is this 1 in 5 in people who are otherwise asymptomatic as well? I guess not, or we would be seeing a lot more dead but I wonder if there are any heart attacks occurring in otherwise asymptomatic people and not being marked down as Covid-19 related.
I just had a family friend die of a heart attack with no covid symptoms - definitely a scary time
My otherwise fit brother dropped dead of a heart attack without a single warning symptom of any kind.
But that was a year ago, so not COVID.