Coronavirus May Be a Blood Vessel Disease
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I've been saying something like this for a while, haven't I?
Months into the pandemic, there is now a growing body of evidence to support the theory that the novel coronavirus can infect blood vessels, which could explain not only the high prevalence of blood clots, strokes, and heart attacks, but also provide an answer for the diverse set of head-to-toe symptoms that have emerged.
“All these Covid-associated complications were a mystery. We see blood clotting, we see kidney damage, we see inflammation of the heart, we see stroke, we see encephalitis [swelling of the brain],” says William Li, MD, president of the Angiogenesis Foundation. “A whole myriad of seemingly unconnected phenomena that you do not normally see with SARS or H1N1 or, frankly, most infectious diseases.”
“If you start to put all of the data together that’s emerging, it turns out that this virus is probably a vasculotropic virus, meaning that it affects the [blood vessels],” says Mandeep Mehra, MD, medical director of the Brigham and Women’s Hospital Heart and Vascular Center.
In a paper published in April in the scientific journal The Lancet, Mehra and a team of scientists discovered that the SARS-CoV-2 virus can infect the endothelial cells that line the inside of blood vessels. Endothelial cells protect the cardiovascular system, and they release proteins that influence everything from blood clotting to the immune response. In the paper, the scientists showed damage to endothelial cells in the lungs, heart, kidneys, liver, and intestines in people with Covid-19...
The good news is that if Covid-19 is a vascular disease, there are existing drugs that can help protect against endothelial cell damage. In another New England Journal of Medicine paper that looked at nearly 9,000 people with Covid-19, Mehra showed that the use of statins and ACE inhibitors were linked to higher rates of survival. Statins reduce the risk of heart attacks not only by lowering cholesterol or preventing plaque, they also stabilize existing plaque, meaning they’re less likely to rupture if someone is on the drugs.
“It turns out that both statins and ACE inhibitors are extremely protective on vascular dysfunction,” Mehra says. “Most of their benefit in the continuum of cardiovascular illness — be it high blood pressure, be it stroke, be it heart attack, be it arrhythmia, be it heart failure — in any situation the mechanism by which they protect the cardiovascular system starts with their ability to stabilize the endothelial cells.”
Mehra continues, “What we’re saying is that maybe the best antiviral therapy is not actually an antiviral therapy. The best therapy might actually be a drug that stabilizes the vascular endothelial. We’re building a drastically different concept.” -
In Israel we have been giving automatically low molecular weight heparin to every patient with more than mild symptoms since March, based on italian data. On the incidence of pulmonary embolisms and coagulation issues. Probably from endothelial damage.
Btw we no longer give any chloroquine.
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@bachophile said in Coronavirus May Be a Blood Vessel Disease:
Btw we no longer give any chloroquine.
Even in Israel, TDS.
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@bachophile said in Coronavirus May Be a Blood Vessel Disease:
In Israel we have been giving automatically low molecular weight heparin to every patient with more than mild symptoms since March, based on italian data. On the incidence of pulmonary embolisms and coagulation issues. Probably from endothelial damage.
Btw we no longer give any chloroquine.
SIL threw a PE in the hospital. Wish she had been on heparin.
Talked to her yesterday...Among several symptoms she still has, is a cold feeling in her toes and pain in her feet and knees.
By this fall, the standard of care for this disease have changed a good bit since the first cases.
Always remember, Operation Valkyrie was an act of sedition.
Warning: I post things that interest me. Read and comment at your own discretion. -
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@Jolly said in Coronavirus May Be a Blood Vessel Disease:
SIL threw a PE in the hospital. Wish she had been on heparin.
Talked to her yesterday...Among several symptoms she still has, is a cold feeling in her toes and pain in her feet and knees.
Sigh.
By this fall, the standard of care for this disease have changed a good bit since the first cases.
From the article: "The best therapy might actually be a drug that stabilizes the vascular endothelial. We’re building a drastically different concept.”"
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@Mik said in Coronavirus May Be a Blood Vessel Disease:
Jolly, is your SIL recovering though or still in the hospital?
She is recovering at home. She was originally admitted to The Lake in the last of March and was hospitalized almost a week. They sent her home before they should have, because they needed the bed (ironic, the CABG patch was their COVID ward, so she was in the same ward where she had worked for many years) and they knew she could do her own monitoring.
It's been a very slow and puzzling process. Just this past week, she has been able to sleep most nights without O2. She has DC'd daytime O2 for two or three weeks. She exhibits RA symptoms, with pain and tenderness in her joints, particularly her knees and feet. My wife laughs at her and tells her welcome to the club.
Her cardiologist told her that her heart is still inflamed and she has some liver inflammation...Stands to reason, as her TBil is on the high side of normal and her liver enzymes are still elevated, though not nearly as bad as upon admittance. She has some scarring on the L lung.
She can do some exercises, but not others. She can walk a treadmill for 20 minutes at a walking pace, but couldn't make three minutes on a recumbent bike without chest pains.
My SIL long ago earned the nickname of the Rabid Chihuahua. She is a perpetual motion machine. She has no sedentary hobbies or activities. Chomping at the bit, she is tired of recovery and needs (her words) to go back to work. Her docs have told her, maybe last of July, first of August.
For everyone's sanity, I hope so.
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"My pronouns are FA/FO." - Mik, 2024
