Japanese study predicts post-COVID heart failure

Tokyo, Dec 30: A team of Japanese researchers have predicted the risk of a "heart failure pandemic" as a result of Covid-19, stressing the need for developing countermeasures.

Covid infections have raised the risk of heart failure from persistent viral infection in their hearts, even without developing heart disease, said the team, including researchers from Riken, Japan's largest scientific institute, The Mainichi reported.

Post Covid pandemic, there has been a significant surge in heart attacks, even among the otherwise healthy population. Although some have linked it to Covid vaccinations, global health authorities like the WHO, US CDC, as well the ICMR have denied the association between the two. Their studies have shown that people without Covid vaccinations have been more at risk of heart problems due to Covid, and that the jabs have been safe.

Coronavirus infection occurs when a protruding spike protein on the surface of the virus latches onto ACE2 receptors on the surface of human cells.

The team explained that the ACE2 receptor is more common in the heart than other organs. Some Covid patients have reportedly had reduced cardiac function, but the mechanism's details are not yet known, the report said.

In the study, published in the American science journal iScience, the research team first created heart tissue using induced pluripotent stem (iPS) cells.

When a large amount of the virus was made to infect the tissue, cardiac function declined and did not recover. When 10 percent of the previous amount infected the tissue, a certain level of cardiac function remained, but the infection persisted for four weeks.

Researchers said it's possible that some patients won't develop heart failure even if the infection persists.