Study: COVID increases risk of developing irregular heartbeat

In addition to fatigue, cough, chest pain, brain fog and other well-known COVID symptoms, you can add the risk of developing atrial fibrillation.

A new study by Swedish researchers showed the odds of developing this dangerous irregular heartbeat increased 12-fold in the month after contracting COVID-19, compared to people who didn’t get the disease.

“We found that the risks were higher in older individuals, individuals with severe COVID-19 and during the first wave of the pandemic,” researcher Dr. Anne-Marie Fors Connolly, who led the research group at Umeå University, said in a university news release, according to Health News.

“We could also see that unvaccinated people were at higher risk than vaccinated people,” she added. “Overall, the severity of the infection was the strongest risk factor.”

The researchers analyzed data on more than 1 million Covid-infected Swedes and compared it to health data on 4 million Swedes who never contracted the illness.

Not only did the analysis show an increased risk for atrial fibrillation, the team also discovered a bout of COVID-19 raised the odds for paroxysmal supraventricular tachycardia, another dangerous arrhythmia, for six months.

The increased risk of atrial fibrillation lasted for two months, the researchers found.

The risk of developing paroxysmal supraventricular tachycardia increased five-fold within a month of being infected, while the chances for another irregular heartbeat, called bradyarrhythmias, tripled during that same time frame.

The study, published recently in the European Heart Journal, underlines “the importance of both being vaccinated against COVID-19 and that the healthcare system identifies people at increased risk of this type of complications, so that the correct diagnosis is made and appropriate treatment is started in time,” said study first author Dr. Ioannis Katsoularis, a cardiologist at University Hospital of Northern Sweden in Umeå.