In support of this hypothesis, several studies have shown that COVID-19 can disrupt the composition of the human microbiome, and people who develop these post-infection microbiome disruptions may be at greater risk for Long COVID complications. “If, following infection, the microbiome is disturbed, this could lead to metabolic disturbances including higher cholesterol,” he says. The human oral and gastrointestinal tracts are populated by trillions of bacteria that assist in various metabolic processes, including the breakdown and absorption of food molecules. “One of them has to do with microbiome dysbiosis,” he says. While Al-Aly agrees that it’s impossible to say with certainty what might be causing the cholesterol issues in people who have had COVID-19, he says several plausible hypotheses have been proposed. “Some people have said maybe those who had COVID didn’t do as much exercise, or maybe they were more homebound and ate more, but I don’t think that’s the reason.” How could COVID-19 cause cholesterol problems to develop in people who, prior to infection, had no sign of elevated blood lipids? “I can’t answer that,” Schlagenhauf says. “But a couple of differences were significant, and one was that the group who had previously been infected had higher blood cholesterol, higher BMI, and higher LDL than the group who didn’t have any exposure to the virus.” In essence, her study turned up the same results as the VA study-albeit in a younger group of people and with different methods of testing. “We were quite surprised to see that there was very little difference between the groups,” Schlagenhauf says. The researchers compared the health outcomes of those who’d had COVID-19 to those who hadn’t, and their analysis included metabolic, pulmonary, cardiovascular, reproductive, and psychiatric symptoms or conditions. The average age of the 501 participants in her group’s study was 21, and all of them were healthy enough to engage in military training. Patricia Schlagenhauf, principal investigator of the study and a professor in the Epidemiology, Biostatistics and Prevention Institute at the University of Zurich in Switzerland. “Shortly after the pandemic started, the surgeon general of the Swiss Armed Forces asked for a study designed specifically to examine the impact of COVID-19 infection in young recruits,” says Dr. In August of 2022, the journal Lancet Infectious Diseases published a COVID-19 study focusing on unvaccinated Swiss military personnel. While many questions remain to be answered, experts who have examined this post-COVID phenomenon say it could present serious health risks to millions of Americans-but that there are things you can do to protect yourself. Other high-quality studies have turned up the same connection. “That may sound small, but when you’re talking about billions of people who have been infected, this could translate to millions of people around the world having cholesterol problems that they did not have before.”Īl-Aly’s research isn’t the only work linking COVID-19 to cholesterol problems. How common are these complications, according to his study findings? “Out of 100 adults infected with the virus, anywhere between one and four could end up with high cholesterol as a result,” he says. “And these were all new events, meaning they were showing up in people who had no history of cholesterol problems.” “What we found was a very clear signal that people who had had COVID-19 had a higher risk of cholesterol problems that included higher LDL, higher total cholesterol, higher triglycerides, and lower levels of so-called good cholesterol,” he says. They found that unvaccinated people who had been infected with SARS-CoV-2 were significantly more likely to develop high cholesterol and other unhealthy levels of blood fats than people who had not been infected. In a study appearing in the January 2023 issue of the journal Lancet Diabetes and Endocrinology, Al-Aly and colleagues examined the health records of more than 150,000 users of the VA health system.
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