But it can progress to more severe heart problems, and is one of the leading causes of sudden death in young adults. Myocarditis is frequently caused by viruses, and resolves on its own in many cases. These results were controversial but concerning. This is worrying for people with severe symptoms, but more recently, a few studies suggested that COVID-19 can cause heart inflammation, or myocarditis, even in people who showed mild symptoms, or had recovered. Read: America is trapped in a pandemic spiral Such patients are more likely to die than others with no signs of heart injury. Several studies have now shown that roughly 10 to 30 percent of hospitalized COVID-19 patients had high levels of troponin-a protein released into the blood when the heart’s muscle cells are damaged. Experiments have found that SARS-CoV-2 can destroy lab-grown versions of those cells. “Data have been trickling in.”Īutopsies have found traces of the coronavirus’s genetic material in the heart, and actual viral particles within the heart’s muscle cells. “Cardiologists have been thinking about this since March,” said Kontorovich, who is based at Mount Sinai. That much was clear in the early months of the pandemic, when some COVID-19 patients would be hospitalized with respiratory problems and die from heart failure. But SARS-CoV-2, the new coronavirus behind the COVID-19 pandemic, can also damage the heart. That might seem like an odd experiment for a virus that spreads through the air, and primarily infects the lungs and airways. “I’ve been in my lab infecting heart cells with SARS-CoV-2 since 6 a.m. Last Monday, when I called the cardiologist Amy Kontorovich in the late morning, she apologized for sounding tired.
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