Recovery of the cardiovascular system in young people takes several months after infection with COVID-19

According to research conducted at the University of Appalachia in North Carolina, blood stiffness and blood pressure in young and otherwise healthy adults may improve up to six months after COVID-19 infection. The discovery was made as a result of a follow-up study using longitudinal tracking of people recently infected with COVID-19. The results are published on the eve of printing in Journal of Applied Physiology.

Physiologists wanted to know when and when stiffness of the arteries and blood pressure at 14 young adults (seven men and seven women) improve after infection with COVID-19. Progress in these areas will ultimately improve vascular health during the recovery process. Arterial stiffness is usually caused by aging, hardening of the artery walls and inflammation. Increased arterial stiffness or blood pressure is associated with an increased risk of cardiovascular disease such as heart failurehypertension and stroke.

The researchers conducted testing on study volunteers in the lab once a month for six months. Testing included health surveys and measurement of blood pressure and pulse wave velocity, pulse wave analysis, among other markers of arterial disease. Researchers have begun to see an improvement in arterial stiffness and blood pressure for the fifth and sixth months. The results of the study suggest that several months of recovery after infection may be needed even by young people healthy adults.

“We need to better understand the long-term impact of COVID-19,” said Stephen Ratchford, Ph.D., principal investigator. “I think this is a step in the right direction towards understanding the potential long-term vascular complications caused by COVID-19. While young relatively healthy individuals may need so much time to recover, I am interested in more susceptible populations and how others recover after additional infections with other variants of COVID-19 ”.