Doctors are starting to see a trend of people with cardiovascular disease being more at-risk for getting severely ill from Coronavirus. In a previous Healthy Living segment, Erie News Now reported heart disease is the top killer of Americans with a person dying from it every 37 seconds. 

Erie News Now had the honor of speaking with the 18th U.S. Surgeon General and American Heart Association Board Member, Dr. Regina Benjamin about the connection between heart disease and Coronavirus. She noted that while many understood the virus affected certain groups of people more than others, they didn't realize heart disease would be included. 

“What people didn’t quite understand was that those chronic conditions also meant things like high blood pressure, diabetes even if you’re not taking medications, a history of asthma as a child things–strokes–things that put you at risk for cardiovascular disease,” Dr. Benjamin said.

Those conditions tend to affect minorities more often and Dr. Benjamin said that's due to socioeconomic factors such as access to healthcare, education, healthy foods, clean water and fresh air. “We know that your zip code is a better determination of your health outcomes than your genetic code, so it’s not just being African American or being Hispanic," she said.

Because of this, more minorities are susceptible to getting sick from Coronavirus. “And therefore, it wasn’t really a surprise when we start to see the Coronavirus starting to show up more prevalently in these communities, but what did surprise us was that people were coming to the hospital sicker, sicker faster and they were dying more often,” Dr. Benjamin noted.

Because of this concerning discovery, the American Heart Association is investing $2.5 million into a rapid research project to find answers as to why heart disease allows people to become severely affected by the virus. The project will take place over the next six months to a year. 

For more information on the research project, heart disease and how to best prevent heart disease, visit heart.org.