Long Covid Weekly #29 : Viral Persistence?
Viral Persistence evidence, potential treatments expands
Hi everyone 👋,
Happy Monday!
Welcome to everyone who joined the newsletter this week. For those who are interested in my Twitter, please see here.
A lot of news came out this week. It seems that slowly, week by week, the puzzle behind long covid & me/cfs is coming together.
Let’s jump into things 📖.
📰 Media
Long Covid Review goes viral
The Long Covid Review I highlighted in last week’s newsletter has gone viral in the medical community. It is among the most popular papers out! Will be interested to see what research spurs out of it.
NIH Responds about ReCOVER
It seems like the NIH is confirming that they are set out to start running some more clinical trials.
Long COVID study: Blood values indicate reprogramming of immune cells
From Medicalexpress:
"It was shown that the release of these immunologic factors is significantly dysregulated in long COVID." The scientists found that this "reprogramming" occurred in two distinct molecular patterns.
It is also worth noting that the detected subtypes do appear to be independent to the symptoms of long COVID sufferers. "Clinically, long COVID is already well defined. Now we need to better understand the mechanisms involved in the development of the disease and link them to the clinical characteristics,”
Leading COVID expert says not enough is being done to help long haulers: “There’s no excuse for this”
From Fortune:
“Right now, we are long on mechanisms and short on treatment. That’s the summary of everything.”
Inflammation is a common thread across all. It can affect the autonomic nervous system, and that’s how you can get the neuropathy of postural orthostatic tachycardia syndrome [an abnormal heart rate increase that occurs with standing]
There’s a huge number of people who are disabled or compromised in their status because of it, (but) it’s been a slow moving train rather than an emergency. It has not been adequately respected…Right now, the response should be, let’s do everything we can to prevent infections.
🔍 Research
Persistent SARS-CoV-2 infection in patients seemingly recovered from COVID-19
From Wiley:
Collectively, these findings reveal that most patients with previous COVID-19 who progressively deteriorated in their clinical status despite apparent molecular negativity to SARS-CoV-2 still show features of acute viral infection, including lung thrombosis, vasculitis, and the presence of abnormal syncytial cells
The absence of SARS-CoV-2 infection in the respiratory epithelium possibly explains the apparent negativity of these patients to PCR tests
An important question is to understand whether our findings might have relevance in explaining the persisting symptomatology of individuals with the long COVID syndrome, which consists in either continuous or relapsing and remitting COVID-19 symptoms in PCR-negative subjects
My Take: This study definitely confirms what a lot of people have long suspected. I think this study should be replicated in people with mild infections.
Brain correlates of subjective cognitive complaints in COVID-19 survivors: A multimodal magnetic resonance imaging study
🚨Important Definitions
Resting-State functional connectivity(fc): Resting-state connectivity (RSC) may be defined as significant correlated signal between functionally related brain regions in the absence of any stimulus or task. This correlated signal arises from spontaneous low-frequency signal fluctuations (SLFs)
White Matter: is found in the deeper tissues of the brain (subcortical). It contains nerve fibers (axons), which are extensions of nerve cells (neurons). Many of these nerve fibers are surrounded by a type of sheath or covering called myelin. Myelin gives the white matter its color
Sources: White Matter, FC
From ScienceDirect:
This is the first study investigating MRI brain correlates of subjective cognitive deficits in COVID-19 survivors.
The main finding of the present study is that WM (white matter) microstructure and resting-state FC differ in patients reporting subjective cognitive impairment
Finally, we found that subjective cognitive impairments are associated with reduced rs-FC of the right middle temporal gyrus with the right frontal pole and left middle temporal gyrus.
Altered Fatty Acid Oxidation in Lymphocyte Populations of Myalgic Encephalomyelitis/Chronic Fatigue Syndrome
From MDPI:
Natural Killer cells showed a significant increase in fatty acid oxidation utilization under high energy demands in ME/CFS samples following activation in the flux analysis
This signifies that ME/CFS NK cells rely more heavily on long-chain fatty acids for energy during times of stress based on the larger shift in oxygen consumption rate reported in ME/CFS cells compared to healthy control cells
High levels of fatty acids in and surrounding these cells—and the subsequent increased fatty acid oxidation—could also explain a commonly cited finding in ME/CFS literature: decreased NK cell cytotoxicity If excess free fatty acids block the cellular components necessary for effector functions, ME/CFS NK cells will have a lower cytotoxic response than healthy individuals. This, in turn, will lead to a lower capability of the innate immune system to defend against virally infected cells
It was intriguing to see the negative correlation between a patient’s illness duration and measurements of fatty acid utilization and metabolic markers. This would imply that individuals who had been sick longer utilized fatty acid oxidation less in CD4+ effector T cells than those who acquired the disease more recently.
Metabolic features and immune cell dysfunction in ME/CFS T cells, such as decreased mitochondrial membrane potential, glycolytic impairments, lower granzyme A/perforin production, and now higher levels of fatty acid oxidation, are also consistent with an exhausted T cell state, common in chronic viral infections and cancer
My Take: This is a very, very interesting piece. My first thought after this was this might explain why some people who do keto and intermittent fasting see good results.
🩺 Hope & Potential Treatments
Bateman Home Center is conducting a clinical trial!
The Long COVID Clinical Trials: Big Drugs, Big Studies…and More
From Healthrisng:
Lists a variety of clinical trials that will be happening(and are in progress), including:
Stem Cells
Monoclonal Antibody Treatment
RSLV-132
Plasmapheresis
Immunoadsorption
Ampligen
Statins
Temelibam
And more…
My take: For those who need some hope, this article should certainly be a healthy dose of optimism. A lot of promising treatments are being looked at.
Awesome edition as usual!
I live in hope !! As hope is all I’ve got …have been on this hamster wheel over 2 yrs now I’m just a number .. no input or should I say no more input , try this tablet or this . Nobody’s listening to ME !! everyone backs off as they do t seem to know anything. Thanks for listening