Swedish Study Links Long COVID to Higher Cardiovascular Risk, Stronger in Women

Overview

• Researchers at Karolinska Institutet report that people diagnosed with long COVID face higher rates of heart and vascular disease, even when their initial infection did not require hospital care.
• The team analyzed the MIRACLE-S registry in Stockholm, tracking just over 1.2 million adults aged 18 to 65 and identifying about 9,000 long COVID cases after excluding anyone with prior heart disease or COVID-19 hospitalization.
• Over roughly four years of follow‑up, 18.2% of women and 20.6% of men with long COVID had a cardiovascular event, compared with 8.4% of women and 11.1% of men without the diagnosis.
• After adjusting for age and other risk factors, women with long COVID had a little over double the risk of a cardiovascular diagnosis and men had about a one‑third higher risk, with arrhythmias and coronary artery disease rising in both sexes and heart failure and peripheral vascular disease rising in women, while stroke showed no clear link.
• The authors urge structured, sex‑specific monitoring in primary care because many long COVID patients were never hospitalized, while noting this observational study shows association rather than proof of causation.