COVID vaccine may lower your risk of heart attacks, strokes after infection, study finds

Studies have shown a COVID-19 infection may increase a person’s chances of developing new health issues. Now, new research suggests vaccination may be related to a slightly lower risk of certain cardiac problems after catching the virus.

The research is based on a data review of 1,934,294 patients, including 217,843 people who received varying doses of a COVID-19 vaccine, according to the study by researchers from the Icahn School of Medicine at Mount Sinai. The patients were infected with the virus between March 2020 and February 2022.

Full and partial vaccination was linked to lower chances of people having heart attacks, strokes and other cardiovascular problems following a COVID-19 infection, the research found. The study published in the Journal of the American College of Cardiology on Feb. 20 received funding from the National Institutes of Health.

Among the nearly 2 million study participants, 13,948 people experienced major heart issues, including 12,733 people who didn’t get vaccinated against COVID-19, or 0.7% of the unvaccinated group, according to the study.

A total of 160 partially vaccinated patients, or 0.7% of them, developed heart problems after a COVID-19 infection, the study found. This group was made up of people who received at least one dose of Pfizer’s or Moderna’s mRNA COVID-19 vaccine or one dose of the Johnson and Johnson vaccine, according to the findings.

Of the fully vaccinated group, defined as those who received two or more vaccine doses, 1,055 patients, or 0.5%, experienced cardiac issues.

Although the findings aren’t causal, meaning COVID-19 vaccination wasn’t directly found to prevent heart issues, senior study author Dr. Girish Nadkarni said in a news release that the work “is supportive evidence that vaccination may have beneficial effects on a variety of post-COVID-19 complications.”

The researchers wrote that their study follows previous work suggesting a connection between COVID-19 vaccination and heart issues within a few days of a person getting the shot.

Prior research has found there’s a small risk of heart inflammation, specifically myocarditis and pericarditis, after a person gets vaccinated with mRNA COVID-19 vaccines, according to Dr. James Lawler, an infectious diseases specialist at Nebraska Medicine.

There have been reports of myocarditis and pericarditis in young men and adolescents after vaccination with Pfizer or Moderna’s COVID-19 vaccine, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. The CDC says these reports are rare and the agency is monitoring them.

A peer-reviewed study published in December in Nature Cardiovascular Research found that people may have a higher chance of developing the debilitating heart condition POTS (postural orthostatic tachycardia syndrome) after a COVID-19 infection, McClatchy News previously reported.

That work, involving researchers at Cedars-Sinai Medical Center in Los Angeles, also found that getting vaccinated against COVID-19 is linked to a greater chance of developing POTS, which causes a person’s heart to rapidly race in the 10 minutes after standing up, but to a “lesser extent” than after an infection.

“Risks remain higher after infection than after vaccination,” the authors wrote.

In the current study, researchers found the general risk of cardiovascular consequences increased among men, patients 66 and older, and those with comorbidities.

However, Nadkarni noted that vaccinated patients with comorbidities such as prior heart issues, type 2 diabetes, liver disease, obesity and high cholesterol saw lower risk of cardiovascular issues.

The study authors considered the source of their data, the National COVID Cohort Collaborative (N3C) database, as a major strength.

The researchers didn’t analyze COVID-19 reinfections and different variants of the virus, which authors list as a limitation of their work.

“We hope our findings could help improve vaccination rates, especially in individuals with coexisting conditions,” lead study author Dr. Joy Jiang said in a statement.

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