New research has revealed that COVID-19 vaccines may provide an added benefit by helping to protect cardiovascular health.
A study published on Monday in JAMA Internal Medicine found that the 2024–2025 COVID-19 vaccine was associated with a nearly 38% reduction in major cardiovascular events related to COVID-19. These events included cardiovascular deaths, heart attacks, strokes, and hospitalizations due to heart failure.
The study analyzed data from more than one million U.S. veterans and found that the protective effect was most significant among adults aged 75 and older, as well as individuals with underlying health conditions.
According to The Washington Post, the vaccine also contributed to a smaller reduction in the risk of cardiovascular conditions, hospitalizations, and deaths from all causes, including those not directly linked to COVID-19. Researchers examined the benefits of several vaccine types, including mRNA vaccines and the Novavax vaccine.
“It tells us that these vaccines have actually brought beneficial effects even in people who don’t really know that they actually have contracted COVID-19,” said Dr. Ziyad Al-Aly, Director of the Clinical Epidemiology Center at Washington University in St. Louis and a co-author of the study.
The findings further indicated that the vaccine reduced the risk of severe heart conditions unrelated to COVID-19 by 6% and was associated with a 7% reduction in overall deaths and hospitalizations from all causes, according to The Washington Post.
In a separate study also published in JAMA Internal Medicine, researchers found that the 2024–2025 COVID-19 vaccines reduced the risk of COVID-19-related emergency care visits, hospitalizations, and critical illness among adults.
The study, led by Ryan Wiegand and researchers from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), evaluated vaccine effectiveness across the United States. The results showed that vaccinated individuals were less likely to require emergency room or urgent care visits related to COVID-19. Among adults aged 18 and older, vaccine effectiveness against critical illness was estimated at 41%.
Experts suggest that COVID-19 vaccines may help protect against a broader range of illnesses and health conditions. As an example, scientists at the University of Florida recently found that patients with advanced lung or skin cancer who received a COVID-19 mRNA vaccine within 100 days of beginning immunotherapy treatment lived significantly longer than those who did not receive the vaccine.
“MRNA vaccines are doing something else to our system that we haven’t completely understood yet, and I do think there’s probably a lot of positive that is going to come,” said Dr. Nisha Viswanathan, Director of the UCLA Long COVID Program.
