A recent study has shown that the COVID-19 vaccine reduces the risk of major cardiovascular events related to COVID-19, such as strokes, heart attacks, and hospital admissions due to heart disease, by about 40 percent.
The study, published in the journal "JAMA Internal Medicine," highlights the vaccine's broad benefits, including reduced cases of cardiovascular diseases, hospitalizations, and deaths from all causes, including non-COVID-19 related, according to the researchers.
Ziyad Al-Aly, a prominent clinical epidemiologist at Saint Louis University and one of the study's authors, stated, "These findings tell us that these vaccines have indeed achieved beneficial effects even for individuals unaware they had COVID-19," as reported by The Washington Post.
Previous studies have indicated that the COVID-19 vaccine reduces the occurrences of heart attacks and strokes, including research involving about 46 million adults in England between 2020 and 2022.
The researchers in the latest study sought to determine if these benefits persisted in the years following the pandemic's onset.
Al-Aly noted, "Vaccine formulations have changed, and so has the virus over time," adding that they found newer vaccine formulations still provide protection against heart diseases.
The study was conducted among veterans using the Department of Veterans Affairs health system in the United States, involving about one million people between 2024 and 2025.
It compared participants who received the seasonal flu vaccine to those who got the updated COVID-19 vaccine in that season, including several types of vaccines like mRNA and the Novavax vaccines.
The participants were tracked for approximately eight months to see if they had any cardiovascular events related to COVID-19.
The study found that the group receiving the COVID-19 vaccine was 37.7 percent less likely to develop heart-related illnesses linked to COVID.
The benefit was more pronounced among patients over 75 years of age and those with pre-existing conditions such as cardiovascular diseases, diabetes, or chronic lung diseases.
According to the results, individuals who received the COVID-19 vaccine were about 6 percent less likely, in general, to suffer from heart issues, including those not linked to COVID-19 infections.
The vaccine was also associated with approximately a 7 percent reduction in mortality and hospitalizations from all causes.
Al-Aly explained that while these percentages seem low, they practically mean avoiding about 23 major cardiovascular events, 30 hospital admissions, and 16 deaths for every 10,000 vaccine recipients.
The study added: "When extrapolating these estimates to a population of one million, vaccination could reasonably be linked to preventing about 2,370 major cardiovascular events and 1,580 deaths over an 8-month period."