That is the finding of a new study from Washington University in St. Louis. The school distributed a press release about the study, which was published in the journal Nature Medicine.
“Some estimates show more than 90% of the U.S. population has been infected with COVID-19,” Ziyad Al-Aly, chief of research and development at Veterans Affairs St. Louis Health Care System and clinical epidemiologist at Washington University, told the St. Louis Post–Dispatch. “Doctors need to realize that their patients could be at risk of these conditions, be it heart disease or lung problems or brain problems – they’re at risk.”
The researchers compared the health records for 138,000 patients who had been infected with those of 6 million who had not. They followed 80 health conditions associated with long COVID for 2 years. They used unnamed records from the VA.
“There was really nothing at all looking at what happens to people at two years after the infection,” Dr. Al-Aly said. “So we decided to take a look.”
Patients who hadn’t been hospitalized within 30 days of infection had a higher risk of death 6 months after recovery, and a higher risk of hospitalization within 18 months. They had higher risk of diabetes, fatigue, joint pain, and other problems compared with people who had not been infected.
“In the nonhospitalized group, risks remained elevated for several problems, for several organ systems,” Dr. Al-Aly said. “For the people who were hospitalized, the risk was ubiquitous across all organ systems. It really spans the gamut with respect to the organ systems that are affected.”
People who had been hospitalized had a 65% greater risk of illnesses after 2 years. Nonhospitalized patients had just a 35% greater risk.
A version of this article first appeared on WebMD.com.