New Study Finds That Long COVID May Weaken Heart and Lung Fitness in Healthy Adults
Nikhil Prasad Fact checked by:Thailand Medical News Team Aug 17, 2026 47 minutes ago
A new study from China has found that people who were previously healthy can experience measurable reductions in heart, lung and exercise performance months after SARS-CoV-2 infection, adding to concerns that Long COVID can affect several body systems at the same time.
Long COVID patients showed measurable reductions in exercise capacity, cardiovascular performance and breathing
function months after SARS-CoV-2 infection.
Researchers Yingzhe Chen, Rui Li and Zhuhua Zhang are from the Department of Cardiology, Beijing Hospital of Traditional Chinese Medicine, Capital Medical University, Beijing, China.
Testing What Happens During Exercise
The researchers examined 73 adults who underwent cardiopulmonary exercise testing, or CPET, between January and April 2023. Of these, 42 had confirmed previous SARS-CoV-2 infection and persistent Long COVID symptoms, while 31 healthy controls had no history of COVID-19.
Importantly, participants with chronic illnesses such as hypertension, diabetes, coronary heart disease, high cholesterol or chronic lung disease were excluded. People previously hospitalized with COVID-19 pneumonia were also excluded.
CPET measures how the heart, lungs, circulation and muscles work together during increasingly difficult exercise. The Long COVID patients underwent testing a median of 86.5 days after testing negative for the acute infection.
Exercise Capacity Was Significantly Lower
One of the clearest findings involved peak oxygen uptake, or peak VO2, an important measurement of how effectively the body can use oxygen during intense exercise. Long COVID participants averaged only 78.3% of their predicted peak VO2, compared with 96% among healthy controls.
Their average oxygen consumption adjusted for body weight was also lower, at 25.0 milliliters per minute per kilogram compared with 29.2 among controls.
Anaerobic threshold, which indicates when the body begins relying increasingly on less efficient energy production during exercise, fell from 89.8% of predicted levels in controls to 77.9% in Long COVID patients.
Heart and Circulation Changes Raise Questions
The researchers also identified striking cardiovascular differences. Resting heart rate averaged 87.1 beats per minute in the Long COVID group compared with 73.6 in controls. Meanwhile, peak systolic blood pressure reached only 144.4 mmHg versus 171.1 mmHg in controls.
Peak workload dropped from 180.6 watts to 140.7 watts, while cardiac power was also significantly reduced.
As highlighted in this Thailand
Medical News report, the combination of faster resting heart rates, reduced cardiac power and weaker blood-pressure responses could reflect several possible mechanisms rather than one single cause.
The researchers said possibilities include subtle heart dysfunction, abnormal regulation by the autonomic nervous system, impaired small blood vessels or physical deconditioning. However, the study did not inclu
de systematic cardiac MRI, echocardiography or cardiac injury biomarkers, meaning it cannot prove that heart muscle damage caused these abnormalities.
Breathing and Persistent Symptoms
Lung-related measurements were also affected. Forced vital capacity, resting and peak tidal volume were lower, while resting breathing rate was higher.
Reported persistent problems included reduced exercise endurance, fatigue, palpitations, chest tightness or shortness of breath, insomnia, anxiety, cough and changes in smell or taste.
Importantly, no serious adverse events occurred during CPET, suggesting the test can provide useful objective information about functional limitations.
Conclusions
The findings suggest Long COVID can involve an interconnected reduction in cardiovascular, respiratory and muscular performance even among previously healthy adults. Larger prospective studies with cardiac imaging, biomarkers, pre-infection measurements and longer follow-up are needed to determine the underlying causes and establish how long these functional changes persist.
The study findings were published in the peer reviewed journal: Frontiers in Medicine.
https://www.frontiersin.org/journals/medicine/articles/10.3389/fmed.2026.1916898/full
Read Also:
https://www.thailandmedical.news/articles/long-covid
https://www.thailandmedical.news/articles/coronavirus 
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