You probably know someone who had COVID a while back and still says they feel a bit off. Tired, foggy, not quite themselves.
For many, those lingering effects are easy to shrug off as a slow recovery.
A large study from Stockholm suggests the problem may run deeper.
People with long COVID had a 14% higher risk of being diagnosed with high blood pressure than people without it.
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The research was published in October 2026 in the Journal of the American Heart Association.
The study tracked more than 1.2 million Swedish adults aged 18 to 65 in Stockholm County. The researchers excluded anyone who had been hospitalized with COVID or who already had high blood pressure.
That means the signal showed up even among people whose first infection was fairly mild.
Men and older adults showed the strongest signal
Among people with long COVID, 24% of men and 16% of women went on to develop high blood pressure during follow-up. Overall, about 18% of adults in the study got a new high blood pressure diagnosis.
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The link also looked stronger in older age groups and in people with diabetes.
Both groups already carry higher baseline cardiovascular risk, so the extra nudge from long COVID matters more.
Earlier work has shown COVID can affect the lining of blood vessels and change blood pressure readings for up to three years after infection. The overlap with diabetes points to shared pathways linking metabolism and the circulatory system.
What this means for you
Long COVID wasn't common in this group. About 0.7% of the 1.2 million participants, around 8,365 people, had a physician diagnosis.
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The research team, led by Pia Lindberg at Karolinska Institutet in Stockholm, recommends that primary care clinicians add structured blood pressure checks for patients with long COVID.
The findings add to a run of recent studies showing that long COVID can quietly affect the heart and kidneys, not just energy levels and breathing.
For anyone still dealing with lingering post-COVID symptoms, that may be worth bringing up at the next doctor's visit. A blood pressure cuff reading takes about a minute and gives both you and your doctor a concrete number to work with.
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This article is made and published by Ida-Marie Palm Varbæk, who may have used AI in the preparation.