Long COVID may add to cardiovascular risk
People diagnosed with long COVID had a higher risk of later developing high blood pressure in a large Swedish study, adding to evidence that the condition can affect more than energy levels, breathing and cognition.
The research drew on health data from more than 1.2 million adults aged 18 to 65 in Stockholm County. Researchers found that, after accounting for factors including age, socioeconomic status and other diagnoses, people with long COVID had a 14% higher risk of hypertension than participants without a long-COVID diagnosis.
The finding matters because hypertension is a major cardiovascular risk factor and often develops without noticeable symptoms. It is also a condition that can be identified and managed through routine care, making follow-up especially relevant for people with continuing symptoms after a COVID infection.
A study focused on milder initial infections
The analysis used the MIRACLE-S cohort, which links records on diagnoses, health-care visits, hospitalizations and prescriptions. It followed adults between October 2020 and January 2025.
To examine longer-term effects after less severe acute illness, the researchers excluded people who already had hypertension and those who had been hospitalized with COVID. That design means the reported association is not limited to patients whose initial infection required hospital treatment.
Among the full study population, 8,365 people, or 0.7%, received a long-COVID diagnosis. During follow-up, 18% of all participants were diagnosed with hypertension. The incidence in the long-COVID group was reported at between 22% and 23% during the follow-up period.
Those raw figures do not by themselves establish that long COVID caused a participant's hypertension. But the researchers' adjusted analysis found the association remained after considering several factors that can influence blood-pressure risk. The result points to a relationship that deserves continued clinical and scientific attention.
Risk increased with age
The association was stronger in older age groups. That pattern is consistent with the well-established effect of aging on cardiovascular health: arteries tend to become stiffer over time, forcing the heart to work harder to move blood through the body.
The study found a similar relative risk pattern for women and men. Within the group diagnosed with long COVID, hypertension occurred in 16% of women and 24% of men. Those percentages should be interpreted in the context of differences in baseline cardiovascular risk, age and other factors, rather than as a simple measure of biological susceptibility.
Previous research by the authors had linked long COVID with a higher risk of heart disease. The new analysis extends the concern to blood pressure, a measurable sign that can influence risks across the cardiovascular system.
What the finding does and does not show
This is an observational cohort study. It identifies an association in real-world health records; it does not prove the mechanism behind it. The source material does not establish whether persistent inflammation, changes in blood vessels, altered activity levels, stress, medication use or another pathway explains the difference in hypertension risk.
It also relies on recorded diagnoses, so its results describe people who were identified in health care data as having long COVID or hypertension. That is an important strength for studying a very large population, but it cannot capture every symptom or every undiagnosed case.
Still, the scale of the cohort and the exclusion of people hospitalized during their acute infection make the result notable. It suggests that cardiovascular follow-up should not be reserved only for people who were severely ill during the first stage of COVID-19.
Implications for patients and care
The study does not mean every person with long COVID will develop hypertension. It does support paying attention to a risk that may otherwise be easy to miss, particularly as long COVID can involve fatigue, shortness of breath and cognitive symptoms that dominate conversations with clinicians.
- People with persistent symptoms after COVID may wish to discuss blood-pressure monitoring with a health professional.
- Routine readings can help detect hypertension before it causes obvious symptoms.
- Older adults and people with other cardiovascular risk factors may merit particular attention.
Further work will need to test whether the association appears in other populations, clarify why it occurs and determine whether particular types of follow-up reduce risk. For now, the Swedish data reinforce a broader message: the consequences of COVID can persist beyond the acute infection, including in people whose original illness was not severe enough to require hospitalization.
This article is based on reporting by Medical Xpress. Read the original article.
Originally published on medicalxpress.com
