Hi Everyone,
Happy Monday!
Just wanted to let everyone know I will likely have to skip next week’s newsletter. I have some stuff I need to get done that weekend. But I promise I will return with a longer newsletter the following week!
📰 Media
Tell the White House COVID Response Coordinator to tell the truth about Long COVID!
From Action Network:
federal officials continue to undercut mitigation efforts and deny the need for massive scale up of efforts to address the Long COVID crisis.
Jha continues to minimize the risks of COVID infection as well as the numbers of people facing the effects of Long COVID. He also lies about the effect of vaccines on decreasing Long COVID rates, saying “you can reduce your risk of long COVID by 50%, 80%, 90%.”
Jha and President Biden must tell the truth about the Long COVID crisis, so that people can better protect themselves and so those of us living with Long COVID and associated diseases can get the help we need.
People with Long COVID Have a Higher Risk of Early Death and Serious Disease, Study Finds
From Time:
Link to Study Referenced in Article
In a new study published in JAMA Health Forum, people with Long COVID had an increased risk of dying during the study period and developing serious health problems compared to people who never had COVID-19.
In the year after their COVID-19 diagnoses, people with Long COVID were significantly more likely to seek care for health problems including irregular heartbeats, blood clots, strokes, heart disease, heart failure, and respiratory disease, compared to the control group
the study adds more support to an increasingly solid conclusion: COVID-19 leaves its mark on the body in myriad ways, some of which last far longer—and are more serious—than a few days of flu-like symptoms.
Viruses Hiding Out in Patients Hold Long Covid Answers
From Bloomberg:
“You can find lots of chronic infections — people that are probably infected for over a year — where the virus hasn’t changed at all,”
Scientists are exploring the possibility that some of the most infectious versions of the coronavirus — omicron and its descendants — came from chronically infected individuals whose immune systems were weakened by disease, drugs or both.
*Traces in the blood and stool of patients experiencing protracted symptoms suggest that SARS-CoV-2 might be holed up in the gut , fat or other tissues that give shelter from the body’s immune defenses.*
Henrich, who helped develop sophisticated imaging techniques that can pinpoint HIV within tissues, plans to use the same approach to find Covid’s hideouts.
What Not to Ask Me About My Long COVID
From the Atlantic:
I’d like to offer a civilian’s guide to navigating the sensitivities of those furious, frustrated, irritable millions—and to better understanding them
Asking 'Are you doing any better?' doesn’t help.
Long COVID symptoms often change...If I have a new symptom, just roll with it.
I find myself filtering a lot less of what I say these days, because this state of awfulness may be how I spend the rest of my life
My Take: This one is a couple of weeks old but definitely rings true in my opinion!
🔍 Research
Brainstem volume changes in myalgic encephalomyelitis/chronic fatigue syndrome and long COVID patients
From FrontiersIn:
This study reports volumetric differences in the whole brainstem and four subregions in ME/CFS, long COVID, and HC.
We showed that pons, SCP, and whole brainstem volumes were significantly larger in long COVID patients compared with HC, and similarly, pons and whole brainstem volumes were significantly larger in ME/CFS patients compared with HC.
We also demonstrated that “pain” and “breathing difficulty” are strongly associated with brainstem volumes in ME/CFS and long COVID.
Brainstem dysfunction is consistent with the symptoms experienced by ME/CFS patients including cognitive dysfunction, sleep disturbance, orthostatic intolerance, and dyspnea.
My Take: I will be honest I was a little bit shocked that both conditions were associated with larger parts of the brain!
COVID-19 long-term sequelae: Omicron versus Alpha and Delta variants
From ScienceDirect:
The study aimed to assess the association between three predominant SARS-CoV-2 variants (Alpha, Delta, and Omicron) and the risk of developing long COVID (persistence of physical, medical, and cognitive symptoms more than 4 weeks after infection), post-COVID-19 syndrome (symptoms extending beyond 12 weeks), and viral persistence (testing positive beyond 4 weeks despite clinical resolution).
Our study shows that patients infected with the Omicron variant had lower odds of developing long-term sequelae from COVID-19 compared with patients infected with previous variants. Our results indicate a threefold difference compared with the Alpha variant, confirming previous hypotheses. In this sense, it has already been suggested that the severity of COVID-19 with the Omicron variant is milder compared with the Alpha
My Take: I have seen a couple of studies like this at this point, is it time to say this should be common knowledge at this point?
SARS-CoV-2 Spike protein induces TLR4-mediated long-term cognitive dysfunction recapitulating post-COVID-19 syndrome in mice
TLR4: TLR4 is an important Pattern Recognition Receptor (PRR), which activates both innate and adaptive immune cells.
From CellReports:
We found that Spike-induced cognitive impairment triggers innate immunity activation through TLR4, culminating in microgliosis, neuroinflammation, and synaptic pruning. The translational value of our model is supported by the correlation between increased plasma NFL and behavioral deficits as well as by the association between TLR4 genetic status and SARS-CoV-2 cognitive outcomes of patients who recovered from COVID-19. Altogether, our findings indicate key targets for establishment of interventional strategies for prevention and/or treatment of the long-term brain outcomes of COVID-19.
Lung remodeling regions in long-term Covid-19 feature basal epithelial cell reprogramming
From the American Journal of Pathology
This study analyzed a series of autopsies from Covid-19 patients with late-stage lung disease at least 27-51 d after initial viral infection
The results reveal a bronchiolar-alveolar lung remodeling process
The present finding of viral receptor ACE-2 on basal epithelial cells suggests that this cell population might be a direct target for reprogramming towards long-term growth, immune activation, and mucinous differentiation.
Regarding COVID-19 long-term sequelae: Omicron versus Alpha and Delta variants. While it is good news that Omicron appears to cause less Long Covid than the previous variants, it is much more contagious and immune evasive than the previous variants. Because more people catch and get sick with Omicron, the actual numbers of people developing Long Covid after an Omicron wave may be as high or higher than the number of people developing Long Covid after previous variants.
Thank you for sharing the Long COVID Justice petition about Ashish Jha’s statements !