‘A big alarm.’ Coronavirus linked to strokes in younger adults, experts say

Doctors in New York report a worrying trend -- coronavirus may be causing younger patients to suffer strokes, and they’re not sure why.

Over a two-week period, doctors at Mount Sinai hospital saw five patients, all 50 or under, struck by large-vessel strokes. All five tested positive for COVID-19, according to the letter published in the New England Journal of Medicine.

“That creates a big alarm,” Dr. J Mocco, director of the Cerebrovascular Center at Mount Sinai, told USA Today. “Our spider sense goes up to say that there’s something not right here.”

Particularly troubling is that the patients were about 15 years younger than a typical stroke victim, and most had none of the underlying health risks doctors look for, Mocco told the outlet.

Under normal circumstances, Mount Sinai sees an average of less than one large-vessel stroke victim under the age of 50 in a two-week time frame, the letter said.

One patient was a 33-year-old woman, and the other four were men, ages 37, 39, 44, and 49. Only the 49-year-old had any history of stroke.

Studies out of Wuhan, China, where the outbreak began, report similar effects from the virus, according to the letter.

Five percent of hospitalized patients in Wuhan had a stroke, but the youngest among them was 55 -- older than any of the Mount Sinai patients by at least five years.

“The association between large-vessel stroke and Covid-19 in young patients requires further investigation,” the letter said.

While experts may not have an exact explanation, they have some theories.

Coronavirus has been shown to cause blood clots throughout the body, in the lungs, the heart, limbs and extremities, CBS News reported.

If the virus promotes blockages in all those areas, why not the brain as well?

“It’s definitely reasonable that the coronavirus may have an impact on the risk of having stroke,” Dr. Fadi Nahab, Emory University School of Medicine associate professor, told CBS. “We’ve noticed there is definitely increased clotting risk associated with the virus that’s not typically seen in other viral infections.”