COVID-19 infection appears to cause women's blood vessels to age prematurely, potentially increasing their risk of heart disease, a new study says.
Women infected with COVID-19 experienced about five additional years of blood vessel aging, even if they had a mild case, according to results published Aug. 17 in the European Heart Journal.
If a woman landed in the intensive care unit with severe COVID, her blood vessels received up to 10 years of premature aging, results show.
"We know that COVID can directly affect blood vessels. We believe that this may result in what we call early vascular aging, meaning that your blood vessels are older than your chronological age and you are more susceptible to heart disease," lead researcher Dr. Rosa Maria Bruno, a professor of clinical pharmacology at Université Paris Cité in France, said in a news release.
"If that is happening, we need to identify who is at risk at an early stage to prevent heart attacks and strokes," Bruno added.
