Covid vaccination cut risk of adverse heart events, large study finds | STAT

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Health

Covid vaccination cut risk of adverse heart events, large study finds

Vaccine may be cardioprotective, especially for older adults and those with comorbidities

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JOEL SAGET/AFP via Getty Images

By Lauren Chan<br>June 15, 2026

AAAS Mass Media Science & Engineering Fellow

Lauren Chan<br>[email protected]

Lauren writes about healthcare AI data interoperability, the science behind public health recommendations, and pharmaceutical advances in the rare disease space.

Recent Covid vaccination appears to have broad cardioprotective effects, according to a new study, which found reduced risk of events like heart attacks and stroke, hospitalization, and death in people who had received the vaccine.

The study, published in JAMA Internal Medicine on Monday along with several other Covid-related papers, followed more than 1 million veterans who received flu vaccinations at Veterans Affairs health care facilities in 2024; about a third of them also received a Covid vaccine.<br>Advertisement

Infection with SARS-CoV-2 is known to increase the risk of adverse cardiac events. In the eight months after the veterans were vaccinated, the researchers found, those who received Covid vaccines (either mRNA or another type) had a roughly 38% lower risk of Covid-associated major cardiovascular events. This benefit was greatest for those 75 and older and those with chronic conditions like kidney and lung disease.

To the researchers’ surprise, Covid vaccination was also tied to a nearly 24% reduction in all-cause cardiac events — not just those with a documented Covid diagnosis. The authors said this could translate to prevention of approximately 3,500 major cardiac events and 2,400 deaths annually per 1 million people.

Ziyad Al-Aly, a doctor and clinical researcher at Washington University in St. Louis, who led the study, chalks this up to higher rates of Covid infections in the broader community. He spoke to STAT about cases where individuals who felt “under the weather” did not test for Covid at the time, but then weeks later ended up in the emergency room with a cardiovascular event. “What that really means is that those [events] are actually likely related to SARS-CoV-2, that were never recognized to be so in the first place,” he said.<br>Advertisement

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What happened to Covid?

Robert Califf, a cardiologist and former commissioner of the Food and Drug Administration, wrote an accompanying commentary on Al-Aly’s findings. Califf spoke to STAT about why Covid vaccination may protect the heart saying, “There are many, many studies now that show that vaccinations of various types seem to reduce the risk of chronic diseases, including cardiovascular disease … this is not inconsistent with what the other studies have shown.” He agreed with Al-Aly’s thoughts, saying, “it’s also worth keeping in mind that the testing environment has changed a lot, so knowing for sure who had a subsequent infection, that’s probably the shakiest of the whole thing.”

Al-Aly stressed to STAT that Covid is still prevalent in the general population. “Despite the fact that the virus has evolved and things have mellowed down, and we no longer think of Covid infection as consequential, there is still actually a tidal wave of SARS-CoV-2 that continues to circulate in the population,” he said. “Much of it is only unrecognized, leading to heart problems. Much of it is unlinked or unattributed to SARS-CoV-2, because people are not testing.”

While Al-Aly’s findings indicate cardioprotective benefits of Covid vaccines, these results may surprise some because vaccine-related myocarditis — inflammation of the heart muscle — was an early concern about mRNA formulations. The side effect was seen mostly in young men. Notably, studies have found that vaccine-related myocarditis is significantly milder than myocarditis...