Long Covid #45: Covid reactivating ancient viruses, clues on how covid may be driving diabetes & more
Hi everyone!
This week, we share articles about the struggles of professional athlete Jared Walsh as he copes with neurological issues, ongoing research on Long Covid after the public health emergency ends, the link between Covid-19 and a proinflammatory protein, vision impairment in survivors of Covid-19, and distinguishing myalgic encephalomyelitis/chronic fatigue syndrome cases using proteomics and cytokine analyses. Stay informed and up-to-date with our newsletter.
I am also in the process of deciding whether or not people would find it useful if I created a searchable resource for Long Covid-related research articles (& maybe media). I am constantly frustrated looking up certain topics related to LC & was wondering if others felt the same. Leave a comment or reach out if you would be interested in something like that!
Media
Article: Long COVID research after the public health emergency ends : Short Wave : NPR
SUMMARY:
Long COVID patients are dealing with the consequences of the COVID-19 pandemic, as they experience a range of symptoms that worsen or appear after initial SARS-CoV-2 infection, but there is no biomarker for the disease yet.
A group of researchers is trying to understand the blood's clotting patterns of Long COVID patients and how it can inform future testing and treatments.
Multiple microclots that block blood flow to many organs can be found in those with Long COVID, but the level of microclots varies between individuals.
Researchers hope that a biomarker test can help physicians identify those with Long COVID who have high levels of microclots and other post-viral illnesses too.
Article: Angels’ Jared Walsh opens up about neurological issues: ‘It’s been hell’ - The Athletic
SUMMARY:
Angels' Jared Walsh opens up about his neurological issues, which robbed him of the ability to play baseball at his highest level.
Walsh spoke in the clubhouse about the year-long struggle with tremors, crushed depth perception and lost sleep.
Walsh believes that COVID-19 could have played a role in his issues. He said he felt as though the virus didn’t affect him much at the time, but acknowledged these long-term impacts could have a direct correlation.
Missing the first month of this baseball season is just one byproduct of his confounding ailment.
His illness compromised the livelihood of an otherwise healthy 29-year-old professional athlete.
What Walsh clearly wants to get across is just how dire this health situation has to be for him to miss games.
It was agonizing for him to not be there.
My Take:
I think that people do not realize the struggles that athletes go through and that they are not invincible.
Walsh is a professional baseball player and his neurological condition is affecting every aspect of his life, not just his ability to play.
Article: New Guidance on Neurological Complications of Long-COVID
SUMMARY:
American Academy of Physical Medicine and Rehabilitation published new consensus guidance with experts from a variety of medical specialties at 41 long COVID clinics across the US.
The guidance helps clinicians provide better treatment for patients who have neurological complications of Long-COVID.
Monica Verduzco-Gutierrez, MD, chair of the Department of Rehabilitation Medicine at the Long School of Medicine at UT Health San Antonio and a guideline co-author, emphasized the importance of ensuring equitable access to treatment.
Improving symptoms of underlying medical conditions and regular physical activities is beneficial for those affected by Long-COVID.
My Take:
This new guideline is extremely valuable and will provide doctors with much-needed support to better treat patients with Long-COVID Symptoms.
It addresses other critical underlying medical conditions that could exacerbate those symptoms and give many clinical and therapeutic recommendations.
Preclinical Research Deciphers the Roots of Chronic Pain in Long COVID
SUMMARY:
It revealed that the virus left residual genetic material in touch-sensing neurons, which triggered long-lasting changes that left the rodents sensitive to pain.
The research might inform ongoing efforts to understand other symptoms that afflict COVID "long-haulers," such as changes in smell and taste.
These unique signatures could serve as future targets.
Research
DEFINITIONS:
Human Endogenous Retroviruses (HERVs) are sequences in the human genome that are derived from ancient viral infections of germ cells in our primate ancestors.
SUMMARY:
HERV-W ENV was also found in postmortem tissues of lungs, heart, gastrointestinal tract, brain olfactory bulb, and nasal mucosa from COVID-19 patients.
Cytokine expression such as IL-6 secretion is not likely to be responsible for the induction of HERV-W ENV expression
HERV activation occurs without signs of infection of lymphocytes by SARS-CoV-2.
In hospitalized individuals with different severity status, HERV-W ENV protein was confirmed to be expressed at the membrane of significant proportions of both CD3low and CD3high T cells
Article: Vision impairment is common in non-hospitalised patients with post-COVID-19 syndrome
SUMMARY:
The purpose of this study was to study vision-related symptoms
Reading-related symptoms were most common, with the top three symptoms being short attention span/easily distracted, poor comprehension, and difficulty/slowness with reading and writing.
Close behind the top three reading-related symptoms came another type of symptom; Avoiding crowds/cannot tolerate “visually busy” places.
Symptoms included those indicating dry eyes (21.1–26.3%); eyes feel dry and sting, and have to rub the eyes a lot
SUMMARY:
12-16% infected with Omicron met the research definition of long COVID at 3 and 6 months after infection, with no evidence of difference between cases of first-positive and reinfection
Tiredness was consistently the most commonly reported symptom across the three infection-status groups
The overall prevalence of tiredness, poor sleep, SOB, difficulty concentrating, low mood and anxiety increased over time with higher prevalences among first positives and reinfected than test-negatives
Older CYP were numerically more likely to experience long COVID than younger CYP
DEFINITIONS:
Extracellular vesicles (EVs): one of the main participants in cell-to-cell communication and drive inflammatory, autoimmune and infectious disease pathology.
SUMMARY:
EVs are one of the main participants in cell-to-cell communication and drive inflammatory, autoimmune and infectious disease pathology.
A recent study on EVs isolated from ME/CFS patients and from subjects with idiopathic chronic fatigue and clinical depression was able to distinguish the two groups and diagnose ME/CFS cases with a high degree of accuracy.
Using machine learning, researchers were able to identify 20 proteins that can discriminate between ME/CFS and healthy control subjects at an extremely high sensitivity and specificity.
My Take:
This study is significant because it shows that using EVs and machine learning can help diagnose ME/CFS with a high degree of accuracy.
It also highlights the need for further molecular characterization of ME/CFS to provide new insights into the disruptions that occur in the illness.
Identifying proteins that discriminate between ME/CFS and healthy control subjects can aid in the development of experimental therapies and provide valuable information for monitoring their effectiveness.
Overall, this study is a step towards better understanding and improving the diagnosis and treatment of ME/CFS, which occurs in half of Long Covid patients..
DEFINITIONS:
Hyperglycemia: the technical term for high blood glucose
Hepatocytes are specialized epithelial cells that represent nearly 80% of the total liver mass.
SUMMARY:
Occurrence of hyperglycemia upon infection is associated with worse clinical outcome in COVID-19 patients
Our study shows that SARS-CoV-2 can infect, replicate, and produce infectious viral particles in primary human hepatocytes, while providing evidences that it is possibly occurring in the liver from COVID-19 patients as well.
Our data showed that infected hepatocytes produce more glucose than that of the uninfected controls
In this study, we found that COVID-19 is independently associated with in-hospital hyperglycemia and that SARS-CoV-2 is capable of infecting hepatocytes and stimulate these cells to produce glucose through gluconeogenesis.
My Take:
I wonder if this is the mechanism behind Covid leading to more diabetes?
This deserves a deeper dive!
Hope
New Clinical Trial: Baricitinib
30 participants
University of Vanderbilt
TEMPI-Foundation Founder Thread
TEMPI-Foundation funds and supports collaborative research projects to combat #MECFS and related disorders.
There is also this library out there: https://www.zotero.org/groups/4839798/long_covid_research/library
Definite yes on the searchable database!