Skip to main page content
U.S. flag

An official website of the United States government

Dot gov

The .gov means it’s official.
Federal government websites often end in .gov or .mil. Before sharing sensitive information, make sure you’re on a federal government site.

Https

The site is secure.
The https:// ensures that you are connecting to the official website and that any information you provide is encrypted and transmitted securely.

Access keys NCBI Homepage MyNCBI Homepage Main Content Main Navigation
. 2024 Sep 12;134(21):e183777.
doi: 10.1172/JCI183777.

A six-year study in a real-world population reveals an increased incidence of dyslipidemia during COVID-19

Valentina Trimarco  1 , Raffaele Izzo  2 , Stanislovas S Jankauskas  3 , Mario Fordellone  4 , Giuseppe Signoriello  5 , Maria Virginia Manzi  2 , Maria Lembo  2 , Paola Gallo  1 , Giovanni Esposito  2 , Roberto Piccinocchi  6 , Francesco Rozza  2 , Carmine Morisco  2   7   8 , Pasquale Mone  3   9   10 , Gaetano Piccinocchi  11 , Fahimeh Varzideh  3 , Bruno Trimarco  2   8 , Gaetano Santulli  2   3   8   12
Affiliations

A six-year study in a real-world population reveals an increased incidence of dyslipidemia during COVID-19

Valentina Trimarco et al. J Clin Invest. .

Abstract

BACKGROUNDRecent studies conducted in individuals who survived COVID-19 suggest that SARS-CoV-2 infection is associated with an increased risk of dyslipidemia. However, it remains unclear whether this augmented risk is confirmed in the general population and how this phenomenon is affecting the overall burden of cardiometabolic diseases.METHODSTo address these aspects, we conducted a 6-year longitudinal study to examine the broader effects of COVID-19 on dyslipidemia incidence in a real-world population (228,266 individuals) residing in Naples in southern Italy. The pre-COVID-19 and COVID-19 groups were balanced for demographic and clinical factors using propensity score matching.RESULTSOur analysis spans a period of 3 years during the COVID-19 pandemic (2020-2022), comparing dyslipidemia incidence with pre-pandemic data (2017-2019), with a follow-up of at least 1,095 days corresponding to 21,349,215 person-years. During the COVID-19 period, we detected an increased risk of developing any dyslipidemia when compared with the pre-COVID-19 triennium (OR = 1.29; 95% CI, 1.19-1.39). Importantly, these estimates were adjusted for comorbidities by a multivariate analysis.CONCLUSIONSTaken together, our data reveal a notable rise in dyslipidemia incidence during the COVID-19 pandemic, suggesting the utility of establishing specialized clinical monitoring protocols for patients who survive COVID-19 to mitigate the risk of developing dyslipidemia.

Keywords: Atherosclerosis; Cardiology; Cholesterol; Clinical practice; Metabolism.

PubMed Disclaimer

Figures

Figure 1
Figure 1. Flow chart of the study.
Figure 2
Figure 2. Monthly incidence of dyslipidemia in our population during the 6-year observation period.
Each bar indicates 1 month.
Figure 3
Figure 3. ORs for dyslipidemia in the pre–COVID-19 and COVID-19 cohorts adjusted for demographic factors and comorbidities.
Figure 4
Figure 4. ORs for dyslipidemia with respect to the 3 principal components (i.e., abnormal lipid laboratory results, shown in italics) and to the composite outcome for individuals with different demographic factors (sex and age) and comorbidities (namely hypertension, diabetes, COPD, CKD, obesity) stratified according to the pre–COVID-19 and COVID-19 periods.
See also Supplemental Tables 1 and 2.
See this image and copyright information in PMC

References

    1. Xu E, et al. Risks and burdens of incident dyslipidaemia in long COVID: a cohort study. Lancet Diabetes Endocrinol. 2023;11(2):120–128. doi: 10.1016/S2213-8587(22)00355-2. - DOI - PMC - PubMed
    1. National Library of Medicine. A detailed study of patients with long-haul COVID. https://collections.nlm.nih.gov/catalog/nlm:nlmuid-9918334383006676-pdf Updated June 15, 2021. Accessed September 12, 2024.
    1. Ren Z, et al. Alterations in the human oral and gut microbiomes and lipidomics in COVID-19. Gut. 2021;70(7):1253–1265. doi: 10.1136/gutjnl-2020-323826. - DOI - PMC - PubMed
    1. Fijen LM, et al. Severe acquired hypertriglyceridemia following COVID-19. BMJ Case Rep. 2021;14(11):e246698. doi: 10.1136/bcr-2021-246698. - DOI - PMC - PubMed
    1. Aparisi A, et al. Dyslipidemia and inflammation as hallmarks of oxidative stress in COVID-19: a follow-up study. Int J Mol Sci. 2022;23(23):15350. doi: 10.3390/ijms232315350. - DOI - PMC - PubMed