Obesity, Smoking, Diabetes Main Risk Factors Than Heart Disease For COVID Death

New Delhi: Obesity, smoking and diabetes are the main risk factors for death in critically ill COVID-19 patients, rather than pre-existing heart disease, a study has found.Also Read – WHO lists 2 main factors as to why Covid deaths are on the rise again

The study was conducted by researchers from the University of Michigan in the US. According to the study, it has been found that patients with cardiovascular disease have a 30 percent higher mortality rate compared to critically ill Covid patients. However, when adjusted for risk factors including age, gender, race, smoking and others – that relationship was no longer statistically significant.

Senior author Salim said, “The fact that the association between heart disease and death was reduced so drastically when accounting for comorbidities suggests that cardiovascular risk factors, rather than preexisting heart disease, are the main cause of in-hospital death in patients with severe COVID-19. contributes,” senior author Salim Hayek was quoted as saying by news agency PTI.

The study was published in the journal Circulation: Cardiovascular Quality and Outcomes. For the study, it analyzed the outcomes of more than 5,100 patients admitted to intensive care units at 68 centers across the US with severe Covid between March and June 2020.

Of those patients, 1,174 had either preexisting coronary artery disease, congestive heart failure, or atrial fibrillation. A total of 34.6 percent of patients died within 28 days, and about 18 percent suffered a cardiovascular event such as cardiac arrest or myocarditis.

The association between such events and death did not differ between patients with and without pre-existing heart disease, the researchers say. The study found that the presence of myocardial injury was associated with cardiovascular events and death, regardless of whether the patient had preexisting heart disease. Myocardial injury was common among patients in the ICU, with about half of patients having elevated levels of troponin, which is released when heart muscle is damaged.