Covid-19 infection may have significantly increased the risk of heart attack, stroke and death for up to three years among unvaccinated people early in the pandemic when the original SARS-CoV-2 virus strain emerged. The NIH-supporting findings confirm previous research showing an associated higher risk of cardiovascular events after a Covid-19 infection but are the first to suggest the heightened risk might last up to three years following initial infection, at least among people infected in the first wave of the pandemic.

Cancer incidence trends in 2021 largely returned to what they were before the Covid-19 pandemic, according to a study by NIH researchers. However, there was little evidence of a rebound in incidence that would account for the decline in diagnoses in 2020, when screening and other medical care was disrupted. One exception was breast cancer, where the researchers saw an uptick in diagnoses of advanced-stage disease in 2021.

Adults who use the prescription drug metformin to treat their type 2 diabetes have a lower risk of developing Long Covid or dying after a Covid-19 infection than people with diabetes who take other anti-diabetes medications, according to a large NIH-supported study.