Originally published at: https://boingboing.net/2020/04/07/covid-19-may-be-attacking-the.html
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I suppose: the heart and lungs are in your chest.
Yes, I can confirm that statement.
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This is really interesting, but not surprising to me, because I had what i think was a mild case a few weeks ago, and I remember feeling like it was messing with my heart. At the time I thought I was being paranoid and that what felt like heart stuff was probably just lung stuff. (I wasn’t able to get tested because I could still breathe OK, so I’m just guessing that what I had was COVID-19.)
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p.s. I say “mild” because that’s what the doctors call it, but the chest pains had me worried I was dying.
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Well played sir. 
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which makes the promotion of Hydroxychloroquine by our Cheeto in Chief even more irresponsible since one of drug’s major side effects is heart arrhythmia and prolonged QT intervals (slowing of the heart rate).
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ACE2 receptors are found in the heart as well as the lungs
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So it seems like it causes, or at least can cause, permanent heart damage, permanent lung damage and in some (small number of) people seems to cause brain damage. Since it infects other organs as well, I wonder what other kind of damage it’s doing, what other, less immediately obvious problems, will only pop up months (or years) from now…
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I’m not a doctor, but I thought the mentions of brain damage are in people who had to be put on ventilator. So they may have suffered anoxia or other delightful problems.
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As @ugh noted, the virus seems to use a cellular membrane bound protein called ACE2 to invade cells. ACE2 membrane proteins are implicated in the cough that some patients get who take Ace-Inhibitors, and are found in several other places in the body. They are notably most prevalent in the lungs, however, and that MAY explain why the infection causes primary lung damage.
ACE2 receptor location might be a causal explanation for the other common sequela of covid19 in the severely ill - increased liver enzymes, poor kidney function tests, nause & vomiting. But those signs also go along with sepsis, MODS, etc, so for now we can not be 100% sure of causality. But there does appear to be quite a correlation between membrane bound ACE2 location prevalance and reported statistics on other signs & symptoms.
We are seeing patients with chest pain and slightly abnormal heart enzyme tests who are not having heart attacks. It present similar to viral myocarditis, bc it is viral myocarditis.
This paper does a good, technical job of discussing the ACE and ARB system in regards to Covid19
https://journals.physiology.org/doi/abs/10.1152/ajpheart.00217.2020
@LurksNoMore - - the below linked paper discusses whether ACE2/Covid19 action is happening in the brain. It seems no one is sure that it travels across the blood brain barrier, but it might, especially if there is damage to the capillaries in the brain (which also have some ACE2 binding protein sites).
This article cautions “It is important to mention here that although the cerebral damage may complicate a COVID-19 infection, it appears that it is the widespread dysregulation of homeostasis caused by pulmonary, renal, cardiac, and circulatory damage that proves fatal in COIVD-19 patients”
This does NOT mean anyone should stop taking their ACEinhibitors or ARB blood pressure medications. The most recent article i read by the cardiology people suggests people do not change their medications regimen. If you feel the need, call your cardiologist and speak to them about medication changes, do not do so on your own.
This also does NOT mean stay at home bc you have chest pain. If you have chest pain, get yourself checked out asap - better to spend time getting heart pain checked than to die of an untreated heart attack.
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Nonsense, president Trump said this is no worse than the flu.
/s
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I had a minor heart attack on Valentine’s Day of 2019 (timing, right?) that my cardiologist thinks could have been tied to a weird, nasty virus I’d had a few months earlier, seeing as no tests showed any signs of arterial blockage, my lipids were good, etc. There’s also the chance I have Behcet’s Syndrome, and it could be related to that as well, or in conjunction. Viruses be weird, yo!
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Up to 1 in 5 hospitalized patients have signs of heart injury.
That is NOT AT ALL what you just posted.
Based on observations from medical personnel from around the world, one in five patients infected with the COVID-19 show signs of heart injury during and after their treatment.
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it’s myocarditis which can happen from any viral infection, especially influenza too - the lining of the heart can sustain the infection even after it is defeated elsewhere in the body
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I wonder if most (all) covid reporting should be accompanied by a breaking news disclaimer (this one curtesy NPR):
This is a developing story. Some things that get reported by the media will later turn out to be wrong. We will focus on reports from police officials and other authorities, credible news outlets and reporters who are at the scene. We will update as the situation develops.
There’s just so much “covid may…” stuff flying around and at this point we really don’t know.
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I might have had a very mild case, or I might have had several less than average days, explainable by stress and depression. A couple days ago, I suddenly felt inexplicably good, or perhaps well, as if I’d just gotten over something.
I might have dodged a bullet, but I’m not letting down my guard until a test confirms that.
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Apparently that’s not the current thinking. The reported neurological issues were “brain swelling, seizures, and strokes.” The frequent symptom of loss of smell and taste are also potentially a sign of neurological damage, and that happens quite early on. They think the cytokine storm is involved (which broadly causes damage throughout the body), but also that the virus may attack the brain directly, as it does the heart and lungs.
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Huh, that’s nastier than I realized. Sheesh! Thanks for the information. 
