Dissemin is shutting down on January 1st, 2025

Published in

American Physiological Society, American Journal of Physiology - Heart and Circulatory Physiology, 2023

DOI: 10.1152/ajpheart.00018.2023

Links

Tools

Export citation

Search in Google Scholar

Cardiovascular and cerebral vascular health in females with postacute sequelae of COVID-19

This paper was not found in any repository, but could be made available legally by the author.
This paper was not found in any repository, but could be made available legally by the author.

Full text: Unavailable

Green circle
Preprint: archiving allowed
Orange circle
Postprint: archiving restricted
Red circle
Published version: archiving forbidden
Data provided by SHERPA/RoMEO

Abstract

Many individuals who had COVID-19 develop detrimental persistent symptoms; a condition known as post-acute sequelae of COVID-19 (PASC). Despite the elevated risk of cardiovascular disease following COVID-19, limited studies have examined vascular function in PASC with equivocal results reported. Moreover, the role of PASC symptom burden on vascular health has not been examined. We tested the hypothesis that peripheral and cerebral vascular function would be blunted, and central arterial stiffness would be elevated in patients with PASC compared to age-matched controls. Furthermore, we hypothesized that impairments in vascular health would be greater in those with higher PASC symptom burden. Resting blood pressure (BP; brachial and central), brachial artery flow-mediated dilation (FMD), forearm reactive hyperemia, carotid-femoral pulse wave velocity (PWV), and cerebral vasodilator function were measured in 12 females with PASC and 11 age matched female controls without PASC. The severity of persistent symptoms in those with PASC was reported on a scale of 1-10 (higher score: greater severity). Brachial BP (e.g., systolic BP, 126±19 vs.109±8 mmHg; P=0.010), central BP (P<0.050) and PWV (7.1±1.2 vs. 6.0±0.8 m/s; P=0.015) were higher in PASC compared to controls. However, FMD, reactive hyperemia, and cerebral vasodilator function were not different between groups (P>0.050 for all). Total symptom burden was not correlated with any measure of cardiovascular health (P>0.050 for all). Collectively, these findings indicate that BP and central arterial stiffness are elevated in females with PASC, whereas peripheral and cerebral vascular function appear to be unaffected; effects that appear independent of symptom burden.