Covid-19: research from the United States confirms that it is not a respiratory disease but a cardiovascular disease
One of the few certainties we have about Covid-19 could have definitively fallen. Coronvirus affects the lungs, so much so that one of the most common symptoms is pneumonia, but it would not really be a respiratory disease. According to an American study published in the journal Circulation Research, however, it would be a vascular disease.
“Many people think it’s a respiratory disease, but it’s actually a vascular disease. This may explain why some people have strokes and why others have problems in other parts of the body. What they all have in common is that they all have background vascular disease. “says Uri Manor of the Salk Institute, co-author of the study.
Covid vascular disease: confirmation from the USA
In reality it is not the first time that Covid-19 has been associated with disorders of the cardiovascular system but to date there was no evidence that the Coronavirus was able to attack and damage the cells of the heart, veins and arteries through the infamous protein. spike. For the US study, a sort of modified virus was used but with the classic spike protein crown, which the pathogen uses to attack cells. In two years of analysis it was discovered that the damage did not concern only the lungs but also the arteries of the tested guinea pigs. In particular, Covid-19 would have the ability to bind to ACE2. “If the replication capabilities of the virus are eliminated, it continues to have a significant damaging effect on vascular cells, simply by virtue of its ability to bind to this ACE2 receptor, the protein S receptor,” says Manor.