THE PLOT TWIST : BEYOND COUGH AND FEVER

The plot twist: Beyond cough and fever, the hidden reality of covid 19.

As soon as we hear COVID, it reminds everyone of the rollercoaster ride that takes us back to the days of Dalgona coffee and uncountable nights of lockdown. More than 775 million are confirmed cases of people affected by covid 19. Known symptoms of COVID-19 were cough, cold, fever, and fatigue. But imagine crossing a hurdle just to face a bigger one.  A healthy person who exercises regularly has a heart attack just at the age of 32. Is heart attackreally linked to the unimaginable nightmare called covid 19? Are healthy individuals who had covid are at risk of this? So, let’s find answers to this and dive deep into the hidden threats and post-effects of coronavirus. 

Most of the healthy individuals living a basic life with a good diet and a healthy body are suffering from heart attacks. Doctors and researchers were unable to diagnose the reason for this sudden increase in number of patients. When a search for a similar pattern was done, one common factor that stood out was, that most of them had covid 19 earlier. Some reports suggest that the risk of cardiac arrest or a heart attack after COVID-19 has risen by 50%. 

Covid 19 is caused by coronavirus. A virus is a very small infectious agent that can multiplyonly when present in the host. One of the major functions of human cells is to produce protein, when this system gets hijacked by the viral cell it leads to flu, cough cold, etc. Imagine a small particle entering your nose, it has a small spike on its surface which helps it attach to the ACE2 receptor on the surface of target cells. After this interaction the virus-cell fuses with the host cell due to which all the viral content enters the hostel cell’s cytoplasm. The RNA of the virus takes over the mechanism happening in the cells resulting in the production of the new viral protein causing COVID-19. This virus is different from the other species of viruses as its transmission and mutation rate is faster. 

But how does it exactly cause a heart attack? There are various reasons for this, one of them being long-term damage to heart muscle cells and other cardiac cell types. This directly injures the cells and causes conditions like myocarditis and reduced cardiac function. Even though the initial infection is stopped it can still damage cardiac cells and can persist in young patients. When the body’s immune recognizes foreign cells a cascade of reactions andstarts in the body leading to inflammation and making them prone to rupture and causing an attack. One of the major drawbacks of this virus is that it causes endothelial dysfunction and coagulation which can lead to hypercoagulation leading to the presence of blood colts. Lastly, if a person has already suffered from a heart disease it can cause more damage to that person. 

If all these things are ignored, they can lead to cardiac arrest despite the age.  How can we control this? The first and most important solution lies in our ancient books, it is yoga, a practice that is as timeless as this world. Exercises done in yoga include a lot of breathing activities which help in improving respiration rate and making the body stronger. Not just this, regular check-ups, monitoring cholesterol, adopting a heart-friendly diet, and exercisingconsistently but increasing the intensity gradually. These small things make a bigger impact on our health. 

While the research continues to find the solutions to this, we must focus on ourselves and our well-being. More research should be done on decreasing this harmful effect and finding a solution. Our health is in our hands and our diet, lifestyle, and even small things like sleep, stress, etc impacts it.