Rhondalyn McLean of the Perelman School of Medicine spoke about how COVID-19 can affect the heart. “If the heart has already been weakened by a heart attack or other damage from long-standing high blood pressure, for instance, then the heart is less able to handle those stressors,” she said. “By that, I mean the stressors of infection and inflammation due to COVID-19. So you end up with a vicious cycle—the heart needing to work better, but unable to do so.”
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