If you have heart disease or high blood pressure, be sure to keep taking your medicine during the coronavirus crisis.
According to the Harvard Heart Letter, doctors know that Covid-19 is especially dangerous for older people with heart disease and high blood pressure. What they don't know is why. It could be older people are just more vulnerable, or maybe the cardiovascular disease itself is to blame.
High blood pressure seems to double the risk for bad outcomes in people with Covid-19. Researchers have been trying to find out why. One thing is known: Two classes of blood pressure drugs have something in common with Covid. They both use the same pathways to enter the heart and lungs. The question has been whether ACE inhibitors and angiotensin-receptor blockers (ARBs) help or harm people infected with the virus.
Three studies have found no evidence of harm for people infected with Covid-19 who take these drugs, according to the Harvard Health Letter. The studies are informative but not considered conclusive because they weren't placebo-controlled research.
Doctors recommend people already using the drugs should keep taking them.
Another crucial concern is that heart patients continue taking low-dose aspirin.
In people who died of Covid-19, doctors have found clots in small vessels and capillaries of the heart. These small clots can cause heart attacks and low-dose aspirin helps to prevent the clots.
Covid-19 is suspected to directly damage the heart muscle, causing cardiomyopathy, a form of heart failure. Even Covid patients without heart disease can experience this.
For anyone experiencing symptoms of a heart attack, the most important thing is to call 911 immediately. The hospital is the safest place you can be if you are having a heart attack. There was a dramatic drop in people coming to emergency rooms with heart attack symptoms during March. The usual number fell by 40 percent. Some have speculated that this was because of fear of being infected with Covid at the hospital. Others suggest the dramatic drop in air pollution may have helped to prevent symptoms.
