The Long Haul Part 5
The Cardiovascular Impact
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After following the data for the past 2+ years, it is clear that Covid 19, at its core, is a disease of the cardiovascular system.
The cardiovascular system is comprised of the heart and vessels.
Covid 19 impacts both the heart and the vessels and leads to to pro-thrombic state, which impacts ALL of the organs of the body, with the lungs bearing the brunt of damage.1
Therefore, long COVID is essentially a thrombotic sequelea .2
Cardiovascular issues reported during the acute phase of the disease include: Myocardial injury, myocarditis, acute heart failure, cardiomyopathy and cardiac dysrhythmias.
A study looking at 100 patients with Covid 19, median time of 64-92 days, cMRI showed cardiac involvement in 78% and ongoing myocardial inflammation in 60%. This was independent of pre-existing conditions, severity of disease and overall course of the acute illness.3
Adverse ventricular remodeling was noted in about 30% of patients three months after discharge from hospitalization with COVID-19-associated pneumonia, suggesting cardiac sequelae.4
The vascular and blood clotting impact of Covid19 are well recognized as the virus creates an increased hypercoagulable state in the body.5
Even mild cases of COVID-19 can increase a person’s risk of cardiovascular problems for at least a year after diagnosis.
In a large scale study researchers compared more than 150,000 veterans who survived for at least 30 days after contracting COVID-19 with two groups of uninfected people: a group of more than five million people who used the VA medical system during the pandemic, and a similarly sized group that used the system in 2017, before SARS-CoV-2 was circulating.
Findings for cardiovascular diseases were substantially higher in people who had recovered from COVID-19 than in similar people who hadn’t had the disease.
Twenty cardiovascular problems showed increases over the year after infection. 52% were more likely to have had a stroke and the risk of heart failure increased by 72%.
The risk was elevated even for those who were under 65 years of age and even those who lacked known risk factors (obesity and/or diabetes).6
This virus is wreaking havoc on the heart and vessels.
As persistent systemic vascular inflammation and dysfunction caused by thrombosis are key factors driving various complications of long COVID, early prophylactic anticoagulation can prevent the release of or remove procoagulant substances.
This strategy may in turn protect the vascular endothelium from damage, reduce thrombotic sequelae, and potentially improve quality of life for long-COVID patients.
Traditional allopathic medicine would do this through the use of anticoagulant drugs in a hospital setting which is involved and nuanced. Or perhaps as simple as the use of aspirin, as used in the FLCCC protocol.
From a Naturopathic medicine perspective, I implement natural strategies to thin the blood FAR in advance of the disease and long after. Such strategies include fish oil, curcumin, white willow bark, certain foods such as garlic and onion and avoiding pro-inflammatory foods such as seed oils, refined sugars and carbohydrates and alcohol.
This is not prevention, treatment or cure of any condition, this is a common sense anti-inflammatory strategy that I personally use and have had my family on long before Covid 19 ever came on the scene.
But don’t think that if you get vaccinated that you are out of the woods from cardiovascular complications.
According to a new study in JAMA of 23 million people in Nordic countries, rates of myocarditis or pericarditis (inflammatory heart conditions) were HIGHER in vaccinated males age 16-24 than in the unvaccinated male cohort after receipt of the second dose of an mRNA vaccine.7
“These extra cases among men aged 16–24 correspond to a 5 times increased risk after Comirnaty (Pfizer) and 15 times increased risk after Spikevax (Moderna) compared to unvaccinated,” Dr. Rickard Ljung, a professor and physician at the Swedish Medical Products Agency and one of the principal investigators of the study, told The Epoch Times in an email.
An earlier study showed that the risk of myocarditis was HIGHER for those who received the Moderna vaccine than for those who were infected with the virus in the under 40 age group.
The study found 15 excess cases per 1 million people who received two doses of the vaccine as compared to 10 extra cases per 1 million in those with a positive PCR Covid test. There were also eight excess cases per 1 million people following the first dose as well.
As for those who took Pfizer-BioNTech and AstraZeneca-Oxford vaccines, people (regardless of age) were found to be more at risk of contracting myocarditis from the virus than from either of the vaccines.
Conclusion: “Vaccination for SARS-CoV-2 in adults was associated with a small increase in the risk of myocarditis within a week of receiving the first dose of both adenovirus and mRNA vaccines, and after the second dose of both mRNA vaccines. By contrast, SARS-CoV-2 infection was associated with a substantial increase in the risk of hospitalization or death from myocarditis, pericarditis, and cardiac arrhythmia.”8
The reason I will never receive an mRNA based vaccine, is because it’s been shown to induce vaccine-induced thrombotic thrombocytopenia (VITT).9 I have a personal history of autoimmune idopathic thrombocytopenia and this vaccine technology has been shown to induce VITT. In other words, you lose the ability to clot your blood and you hemorrhage from the inside. No thank you.
The risk of both thrombocytopenia and thromboembolism (vascular and arterial) is REAL for both the vaccines AND the virus.
A BMJ study concluded: “Increased risks of hematological and vascular events that led to hospital admission or death were observed for short time intervals after first doses of the ChAdOx1 nCoV-19 and BNT162b2 mRNA vaccines. The risks of most of these events were substantially higher and more prolonged after SARS-CoV-2 infection than after vaccination in the same population.”
Clearly, neither route is clear of potential complications.
Again, this virus is wreaking havoc on the heart and vessels, but then again, so is the vaccine.
Be sure to check out the entire series: The Long Haul & my podcast episode all about Long Haulers:
COVID-19 Vaccine-Related Thrombosis: A Systematic Review and Exploratory Analysis. Nov 2021.
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