Heart Failure Pandemic – a Japanese Research Perspective!

Predicting the risk of a "heart failure pandemic" post-COVID-19, Japanese researchers underscore the critical necessity for countermeasure development.

Heart failure pandemic is anticipated by Japanese researchers in the aftermath of COVID-19, urging the imperative creation of preventive strategies ().

COVID infections have raised the risk of heart failure from persistent viral infection in their hearts, even without developing heart disease, said the team, including researchers from Riken, Japan's largest scientific institute, The Mainichi reported.

Congestive Heart Failure
Congestive heart failure (CHF) is a condition in which the heart fails to work adequately as a pump that can deliver oxygen rich blood to the body.

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Post-COVID pandemic, there has been a significant surge in heart attacks, even among the otherwise healthy population.

Although some have linked it to COVID-19 vaccinations, global health authorities like the WHO, US CDC, and the ICMR have denied the association between the two.

Their studies have shown that people without COVID vaccinations have been more at risk of heart problems due to COVID and that the jabs have been safe.

Cardiac Pacemaker for Abnormal Heart Rhythms
A pacemaker stimulates the heart with electrical signals when it detects arrhythmias of the heart. Pacemakers are classified based on the number of lead electrodes used and the type of pacing involved.

Coronavirus infection occurs when a protruding spike protein on the surface of the virus latches onto ACE2 receptors on the surface of human cells. The team explained that the ACE2 receptor is more common in the heart than in other organs.

Some COVID patients have reportedly had reduced cardiac function, but the mechanism's details are not yet known, the report said.

Insight on the Potential Post-COVID 'Pandemic'

In the study, published in the American science journal iScience, the research team first created heart tissue using induced pluripotent stem (iPS) cells. When a large amount of the virus was made to infect the tissue, cardiac function declined and did not recover.

Cardiogenic Shock
Cardiogenic shock is defined as reduced cardiac output due to inability of the heart to pump adequate blood in the presence of a normal blood volume.

When 10 percent of the previous amount infected the tissue, a certain level of cardiac function remained, but the infection persisted for four weeks.

Researchers said it's possible that some patients won't develop heart failure even if the infection persists.

CoQ10
Vitamin-like CoQ10 helps generate energy for the cells to function at their optimum level. Secondary to its role in energy production, CoQ10 also functions as a potent antioxidant.

Furthermore, when cardiac tissue was placed under hypoxic conditions to reduce cardiac function, uninfected cells recovered after a certain time, but cells that remained infected with a small amount of virus did not recover.

It appears that their recovery ability was weakened by persistent infection, the report said.

"Some people infected with the coronavirus may have persistent viral infections in their hearts. A testing system and treatment methods must be established in preparation for a 'heart failure pandemic,' in which we will see a rapid increase in the number of heart failure patients," Hidetoshi Masumoto, Riken Research Leader was quoted as saying.

The findings come at a time when there is a fresh global rise in COVID-19 infections. As per the WHO, the global number of new COVID-19 cases has increased by 52 percent during the last month. The UN health body also reported an increase in hospital, and ICU admissions as well as deaths globally.

Reference:

Japanese study predicts post-Covid 'heart failure pandemic' - (https://ians.in/detail/japanese-study-predicts-post-covid-heart-failure-pandemic--20231230123005)

Source-IANS