Hi everyone đ,
Happy Monday!
Research is starting to come in droves! Although I must say, I have noticed a lot of the research seems to be centered around a couple of promising categories. We will see if any of these paths are fruitful(fingers crossed).
Without further ado, letâs jump in!
đ° Media
We are all playing Covid roulette. Without clean air, the next infection could permanently disable you
From The Guardian:
You could see Covid-19 as an empathy test. Who was prepared to suffer disruption and inconvenience for the sake of others, and who was not?
Thereâs a powerful argument that just as cholera was stopped by cleaning the water, Covid will be stopped by cleaning the air.
The clean air standards rich and powerful people demand for themselves should be universal, rolled out to all schools and other public buildings.
Those who suffer the extreme version of this disablement, long Covid, are treated as an embarrassment we would prefer to forget.
My Take: This tweet encapsulates my opinion on this piece pretty succinctly. It does not seem like enough people are advocating for clean air standards indoors. Although, I will be honest I am not familiar with the pricing at scale. Maybe worth a deep dive on my end?
Evidence Is Mounting That Covid Is Bad for the Brain
From The Washington Post:
Scientists have established that long Covid often manifests itself with neurological changes â brain fog, memory problems, fatigue.
*And some researchers have found changes in the brain after even mild cases of the virus.
The scientific paper thatâs most often cited in media scare stories on brain damage and Covid came from the Wellcome Center for Integrative Neuroimaging and Oxford University.*
The researchers noticed a similarity to changes associated with aging â and that led to headlines saying that Covid ages your brain by up to a decade.
*The paper didnât connect the brain changes to any experience of long Covid, and neurologists I spoke with at the time said itâs hard to know whatâs clinically significant.
The Covid-infected brains showed activation in genes associated with immune responses, and decreased expression of genes associated with cognition, learning and memory.*
New report details pain for workers from long COVID
From the Hill:
Long COVID-19 has prevented many workers from going back to their jobs and has caused many of them to receive medical treatments for long periods of time, according to a new report released by the New York State Insurance Fund on Tuesday.
The report analyzed more than 3,000 workersâ compensation claims related to the coronavirus and found that 31 percent of them were suffering from long COVID.
About 70 percent of those with long COVID were unable to return to work or needed medical treatments for at least six months, according to the report.
Eighteen percent of those with long COVID did not return to work more than one year after catching the initial infection.
Claimants with comorbidities or who were hospitalized for COVID-19 were also more likely to develop long COVID.
đ Research
Analysis of thrombogenicity under flow reveals new insights into the prothrombotic state of patients with post-COVID syndrome
Definitions:
ADAMTS13 is primarily synthesized in the liver, and its main function is to cleave von Willebrand factor (VWF) anchored on the endothelial surface, in circulation, and at the sites of vascular injury.
The VWF gene provides instructions for making a blood clotting protein called von Willebrand factor
From JTH:
Our results confirm a hypercoagulable state in patients with PCS related to an increase in VWF(Ag):ADAMTS13 ratio and thrombin generation.
suggesting an increase in thrombin generation in half of our cohort..this increase is considered clinically significant and could contribute to the hypercoagulable state of these patients
Eight of 21 (38.08%) patients had a VWF(Ag):ADAMTS13 ratio â„ 1.5, suggesting that this parameter might also play a significant role in the thrombogenic aspect of PCS.
Platelet binding was significantly increased in patients with PCS vs controls
This is in line with the hypothesis that raised VWF(Ag) levels in PCS plasma may play a role in the prothrombotic state of these patients, by promoting platelet accumulation.
My Take: It feels like every other week a new piece of research drops indicating that a segment Long Covid patients have blood clotting issues.
Inflammatory and vascular biomarkers in post-COVID-19 syndrome: A systematic review and meta-analysis of over 20 biomarkers
âŁïžÂ Abstract Only
From Wiley:
Higher levels of C-reactive protein, D-dimer, lactate dehydrogenase, and leukocytes were found in COVID-19 survivors with PCS than in those without PCS⊠lymphocytes and interleukin-6 were also significantly higher in PCS than non-PCS cases. No significant differences were noted in the remaining biomarkers investigated (e.g., ferritin, platelets, troponin, and fibrinogen)
Long covid outcomes at one year after mild SARS-CoV-2 infection: nationwide cohort study
From BMJ:
Overall, dyspnoea was the most abundant outcome, appearing in five of the six age groups but remaining persistent throughout the first year after infection in the 19-40, 41-60, and >60 years age groups. Weakness appeared in four of the six age groups and remained persistent in the late phase only in the 19-40 and 41-60 age groups.
We observed no significant difference⊠for the measured outcomes between the wild-type/alpha and the delta variants.
Severe Fatigue and Persistent Symptoms at Three Months Following SARS-CoV-2 Infections During the Pre-Delta, Delta, and Omicron Time Periods: A Multicenter Prospective Cohort Study
From Oxford Academic:
Within the COVID-positive group, the prevalence of severe fatigue at three months was significantly higher for pre-Delta compared with Delta and Omicron
Among the COVID-positive cohort, significant differences were found in symptoms reported at three months between VOC cohorts
Significantly more participants in the pre-Delta group compared with Delta and Omicron reported prolonged symptoms at three months
My Take: This paper seemingly confirms that the first-strain of Covid was the most likely to produce long covid symptoms.
COVID-Specific Long-term Sequelae in Comparison to Common Viral Respiratory Infections: An Analysis of 17 487 Infected Adult Patients
From Open Forum Infectious Diseases:
We identify that some diagnoses commonly described as âlong COVIDâ do not appear significantly more frequent postâCOVID-19 infection compared with other common VRIs.
Compared with generic VRIs, SARS-CoV-2 infection during the index encounter was a significant positive predictor for receiving diagnoses of palpitations, hair loss, fatigue , chest pain , dyspnea, joint pain , and obesity in the time period between 30 and 365 days after the index encounter.
My Take: The most interesting paper I read this week, which confirms what a lot of people have been echoing, we know was less about the impact of viruses than we all thought. Covid has brought to light this glaring gap in knowledge, which deserves further research.
đ©șÂ Hope & Potential Treatments
The therapeutic potential of non-invasive brain stimulation for the treatment of Long-COVID-related cognitive fatigue
Noninvasive brain stimulation (NIBS) is painless and safe, it has minimal side effects, and it has been used in thousands of people worldwide. It aims to improve quality of life and reduce the effects of issues related to speaking, swallowing, movement, cognition and other functions. This can be achieved with one of two approaches:
Stimulating the damaged area of the brain to help restore the affected function
Stimulating a different area of the brain to compensate for the loss of function
In this review, we presented three NIBS methods that have the ability to modulate maladaptive fatigue-related neuronal activity that is shown in fatigued patients of several neurological diseases but also recently in people suffering from Long-COVID. Many of the presented studies have already been shown to improve fatigue, in particular cognitive fatigue,
During NIBS, usually small electrical currents are applied. The shape, intensity, and duration of the applied current produces acute or long-lasting effects on the brainâs excitability, activity, and connectivity. They offer the unique opportunity to manipulate the maladaptive neural activity underlying fatigue.
Luteolin-rich fraction from Perilla frutescens seed meal inhibits spike glycoprotein S1 of SARS-CoV-2-induced NLRP3 inflammasome lung cell inflammation via
Luteolin s a flavone naturally occurring as a glycosylated form, and is present in different fruits and vegetables. Many researchers reported that luteolin  possesses antioxidant, anticancer, antiinflammatory, and neuroprotective  effects
From Frontiers In Medicine:
The seed meal of Perilla frutescens  (P. frutescens), which contains two major dietary polyphenols (rosmarinic acid and luteolin), has been reported to exhibit anti-inflammation activities.
Therefore, we have established the ethyl acetate fraction of P. frutescens  seed meal (PFEA) and determined its anti-inflammatory effects on Spike S1 exposure in A549 lung cells.
The S1 spike protein subunit of SARS-CoV-2 (Spike S1) was found to activate an inflammatory reaction in epithelial lung cells and immune cells
Our results evidently show that PFEA and Lu, in a concentration-dependent manner, effectively inhibit Spike S1-induced main inflammatory mediators, including IL-6, IL-1ÎČ, and IL-18.
Accordingly, this indicates a significant anti-inflammatory effect of PFEA and Lu against Spike S1-induced inflammation in A549 lung cells
Thanks a lot for the newsletter. It really creates value and adds to better understanding long covid.
Thank you !!