COVID-19 infection. Usually, you'd expect inflammation to decrease with time after infection, and for all the physiological functions to go back to normal or a healthy level."We can only speculate on what causes this phenomenon without further investigation, but emerging evidence suggests that it stems from COVID-19 triggering the auto-immune process that leads to vasculature deterioration." The paper, published in the Journal of Clinical Medicine, revealed age and time from COVID infection is associated with increased ageing of the arteries.
The study was conducted to compare the arterial stiffness which is used as a marker to measure the function of arteries. It was the first of its kind research to compare the re and post COVID-infection levels of arterial stiffness.
The study included those who had been diagnosed with mild COVID-19, artery and central cardiovascular function were affected by the disease two to three months after infection.
An international team of scientists were able to do this research using baseline measurements from a group of participants involved in a separate study that began pre-pandemic, also investigating arterial stiffness.