Hi everyone đ,
Happy Monday!
Youâll probably notice this going through the newsletter this week but slow news week for research. Iâll chalk it up to everyone returning back from the holidays.
Brighton and Sussex Medical School is looking for participants with and without Long Covid for this Online Survey.
As I mentioned earlier this week on Twitter, I was doing a deep dive on Metformin, and might be dropping a Twitter Thread later this week on my findings.
As always, if you enjoy this post, I definitely appreciate your likes and sharing it!
đ° Media
Hereâs what people with long Covid need to know about navigating health insurance
From CNBC:
nearly half of people with long Covid reported increased medical expenses, according to a recent survey
If long Covid causes you to lose or leave your job and, therefore, your employer-sponsored health insurance, donât panic. You may have several options for getting new coverage
1. Join a family memberâs plan
2. Extend workplace coverage
3. See if you qualify for Medicaid
4. Sign up for a plan on the public exchange
5. Explore Medicare eligibility
COVID Is Doing Something to Our Sleep, And Even to Our Dreams
From Sciencealert:
estimates that 52 percent of people who contract COVID suffer from sleep disturbances during the infection.
found that 26 percent of people who were admitted to hospital with COVID showed symptoms of insomnia two weeks after discharge.
COVID can have a direct impact on the brain, including the areas that control both wake and sleep states.
My Take: This is a under-researched area within the Long Covid space. Insomnia is a serious issue. I would hope to see more done in this area.
Long COVID stemmed from mild cases of COVID-19 in most people, according to a new multicountry study
From the Conversation:
We found that a staggering 90% of people living with long COVID initially experienced only mild illness with COVID-19. After developing long COVID, however, the typical person experienced symptoms including fatigue, shortness of breath and cognitive problems such as brain fog â or a combination of these â that affected daily functioning.
We think, based on the pervasiveness and severity of long COVID, that it is keeping people from working and therefore contributing to labor shortages.
đ Research
SARS-CoV-2 infection and persistence in the human body and brain at autopsy
From nature:
We show that SARS-CoV-2 disseminates early in infection in some patients, with a significantly higher viral burden in respiratory than non-respiratory tissues.
Others have previously reported SARS-CoV-2 RNA within the heart, lymph node, small intestine and adrenal gland. We replicate these findings and conclusively demonstrate that SARS-CoV-2 is capable of infecting and replicating within these and many other tissues, including brain.
Cerebrospinal fluid biomarkers in SARS-CoV-2 patients with acute neurological syndromes
From ScienceDirect:
The pathogenesis of nervous system damage associated with SARS-CoV-2 infection (NeuroCOVID) remains poorly known.
Consistent with previous studies, our findings provide evidence that CNS immune activation occurs in NeuroCOVID patients together with neuronal injury and impaired amyloid processing.
CSF neopterin is a well-established immune activation marker with elevated concentrations seen in many inflammatory states, including infections, autoimmune disorders, and primary CNS lymphoma .Our study found that CSF neopterin was increased in 75% of all NeuroCOVID cases.
In our group of patients, 52.4% (nine with encephalopathy, two with encephalitis) developed changes in CSF amyloid biomarkers, but none presented abnormalities suggestive of Alzheimer's disease amyloidosis.
My Take: This study should be replicated for people with mild covid who developed POTs.
Prevalence of long COVID-19 among healthcare workers: a systematic review and meta-analysis protocol
đšYet to be conducted
From bmjopen:
A systematic review and meta-analysis will be conducted. research studies and preprint articles reporting any primary data on the prevalence and/or the symptoms of long COVID-19 among adult HCWs will be included.
đ©șÂ Hope & Potential Treatments
Could low-dose lithium treat long COVID? UB launches clinical trial to find out
From the University of Buffalo:
Adults experiencing long COVID may be interested in a new University at Buffalo clinical trial  that is testing low-dose lithium as a potential treatment.
researchers in Spain had published findings revealing that patients who were already taking lithium for bipolar disorder who became acutely infected and hospitalized with COVID-19 had better outcomes than those not taking lithium
âI just kept hearing the same story: that within days they were noticing satisfactory benefit,â says Guttuso. Some said their symptoms didnât come back even after they stopped taking lithium, while others needed to keep taking it.
American CryoStem Announces FDA Approval of IND to Commence Phase I Clinical Trial for Long COVID/Post-Acute Sequelae of SARS-CoV-2 (PASC)
From biospace:
will assess CryoStem's proprietary ATCellâą therapy for safety and tolerability with the goal to rapidly develop a safe and effective therapeutic for the expansive Long COVID/PASC population afflicted with this life-altering disease.
The Company's therapeutic pipeline focuses on medical conditions with high unmet medical need where effective treatments are limited or do not exist. The Long COVID/PASC IND is CRYO's second new drug in development harnessing the Company's ATCELLâą Therapeutics platform.
My take: More & more promising treatments are being studied compared to prior years. Maybe this is the year we some major breakthroughs?