(Press-News.org) Long COVID can persist for at least a year after the acute illness has passed, or appear months later, according to the most comprehensive look yet at how symptoms play out over a year.
The multicenter study, a collaboration between UC San Francisco, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) and seven other sites, expands knowledge of post-COVID-19 conditions, describing trends in more detail than previous research and highlighting significant impacts the epidemic has had on the U.S. health care system.
The study appears Aug. 10, 2023, in Morbidity and Mortality Weekly Report (MMWR), a publication of the CDC.
For about 16% of the COVID-positive people in the study, symptoms lasted for at least a year; but for others, they came and went. The study assessed symptoms every three months, enabling researchers to differentiate between symptoms that improve and those that emerge months after the initial infection.
“It was common for symptoms to resolve then re-emerge months later,” said lead author Juan Carlos Montoy, MD, PhD, associate professor at UCSF’s Department of Emergency Medicine. “A lot of prior research has focused on symptoms at one or two points in time, but we were able to describe symptom trajectory with greater clarity and nuance. It suggests that measurements at a single point in time could underestimate or mischaracterizes the true burden of disease.”
Fluctuating Nature of Disease
Long COVID involves a range of symptoms that persist or develop about a month after initial infection. These symptoms are associated with significant morbidity or reduced quality of life.
The study involved 1,741 participants – two-thirds of them female – who sought COVID testing at eight major health care systems across the country. Three-quarters tested positive for COVID, but those who tested negative may also have had an infection of some type, since they were experiencing symptoms. These included fatigue, runny nose, headache, sore throat, shortness of breath, chest pain, diarrhea, forgetfulness and difficulty thinking or concentrating.
COVID positive participants were more likely to have symptoms in each of the symptom categories at baseline, but by the end of the year, there was no difference between those who were COVID positive and negative.
“We were surprised to see how similar the patterns were between the COVID positive and COVID negative groups,” said Montoy. “It shows that the burden after COVID may be high, but it might also be high for other non-COVID illnesses. We have a lot to learn about post-illness processes for COVID and other conditions.”
The data came from the CDC’s INSPIRE project (Innovative Support for Patients with SARS-CoV-2 Infections Registry), which includes Rush University, Chicago; Thomas Jefferson University, Philadelphia; University of California, Los Angeles; University of Texas Southwestern Medical Center, Dallas; UTHealth Houston, Houston; University of Washington, Seattle; and Yale University, New Haven.
Co-authors: From UCSF, co-authors were James Ford, MD, Robert M. Rodriguez, MD, and Ralph C. Wang, MD. For co-authors from other institutions, please see the paper.
Funding: INSPIRE is a CDC-funded project (Contract 75D30120C08008).
About UCSF Health: UCSF Health is recognized worldwide for its innovative patient care, reflecting the latest medical knowledge, advanced technologies and pioneering research. It includes the flagship UCSF Medical Center, which is a top-ranked specialty hospital, as well as UCSF Benioff Children’s Hospitals, with campuses in San Francisco and Oakland; Langley Porter Psychiatric Hospital and Clinics; UCSF Benioff Children’s Physicians; and the UCSF Faculty Practice. These hospitals serve as the academic medical center of the University of California, San Francisco, which is world-renowned for its graduate-level health sciences education and biomedical research. UCSF Health has affiliations with hospitals and health organizations throughout the Bay Area. Visit https://www.ucsfhealth.org/. Follow UCSF Health on Facebook or on Twitter
###
Follow UCSF
ucsf.edu | Facebook.com/ucsf | Twitter.com/ucsf | YouTube.com/ucsf
END
Long COVID symptoms can emerge months after infection
2023-08-10
ELSE PRESS RELEASES FROM THIS DATE:
PeerJ announce Professors Ute Roessner and Luis E. Eguiarte as Co-Editors-in-Chief of forthcoming new journal, PeerJ Open Advances in Plant Science
2023-08-10
Open Access publisher PeerJ have announced their second Editor-in-Chief partnership for the Open Advances series of journals. Professors Ute Roessner and Luis E. Eguiarte have agreed to take on the leadership of PeerJ Open Advances in Plant Science as Co-Editors-in-Chief.
Professors Roessner and Eguiarte are highly respected, award-winning scientists working at the forefront of their fields. As Co-Editors-in-Chief they will provide the scientific leadership for the journal, starting with recruiting an Editorial Board who will ...
NIH zebrafish research included in US Postal Service’s “Life Magnified” stamps
2023-08-10
A microscopy image created by National Institutes of Health researchers is part of the “Life Magnified” stamp panel issued today by the United States Postal Service (USPS®). The NIH zebrafish image, which was taken to understand lymphatic vessel development in the brain, merges 350 individual images to reveal a juvenile zebrafish with a fluorescently tagged skull, scales and lymphatic system.
“Zebrafish are used as a model for typical and atypical human development. It is surprising how much we have in common with ...
Novel socio-environmental vulnerability index pinpoints sustainability issues in Brazilian river basins
2023-08-10
Brazilian researchers combined environmental physical, social and economic indicators to create an index that measures a region’s vulnerability and used it to analyze the basins of the Parnaíba River and São Francisco River in the Northeast of Brazil. The index is named SEVI (for Socio-Environmental Vulnerability).
The Parnaíba and São Francisco basins are considered crucial to agricultural expansion and biodiversity conservation. They contain more than 780 municipalities and part of the semi-arid Caatinga and savanna-like Cerrado biomes, which are threatened ...
Mayo Clinic ‘mini-brain’ study reveals possible key link to autism spectrum disorder
2023-08-10
ROCHESTER, Minn. — Using human "mini-brain" models known as organoids, Mayo Clinic and Yale University scientists have discovered that the roots of autism spectrum disorder may be associated with an imbalance of specific neurons that play a critical role in how the brain communicates and functions. The specific cells are known as excitatory cortical neurons.
The new study is published in Nature Neuroscience.
Findings
The team found an abnormal imbalance of excitatory ...
Muon g-2 doubles down with latest measurement, explores uncharted territory in search of new physics
2023-08-10
Batavia, Ill., Aug. 10, 2023 – Physicists now have a brand-new measurement of a property of the muon called the anomalous magnetic moment that improves the precision of their previous result by a factor of 2.
An international collaboration of scientists working on the Muon g-2 experiment at the U.S. Department of Energy’s Fermi National Accelerator Laboratory announced the much-anticipated updated measurement on Aug. 10. This new value bolsters the first result they announced in April 2021 and sets up a showdown between theory and experiment over 20 years in the making.
“We’re really probing new territory. We’re determining ...
Making molecules dance to our tune reveals what drives their first movements
2023-08-10
Bringing ultrafast physics to structural biology has revealed the dance of molecular ‘coherence’ in unprecedented clarity.
How molecules change when they react to stimuli such as light is fundamental in biology, for example during photosynthesis. Scientists have been working to unravel the workings of these changes in several fields, and by combining two of these, researchers have paved the way for a new era in understanding the reactions of protein molecules fundamental for life.
The large international research team, led by Professor ...
Gut microbiome can increase risk, severity of HIV, EBV disease
2023-08-10
CHAPEL HILL, N.C. – Over the past decade, the gut microbiome has gained significant interest by scientists and non-scientists alike. Recent research has shown that the bacteria and other microbes in our gut play a supporting role in immunity, metabolism, digestion, and the fight against "bad bacteria" that try to invade our bodies.
However, new research published in Nature Biotechnology by Angela Wahl, PhD, Balfour Sartor, MD, J. Victor Garcia, PhD, and UNC School of Medicine colleagues others has revealed that the microbiome may not as always be protective against human pathogens.
Using a first-of-its-kind ...
YALE EMBARGOED NEWS: Yale scientists reveal two paths to autism in the developing brain
2023-08-10
New Haven, Conn. — Two distinct neurodevelopmental abnormalities that arise just weeks after the start of brain development have been associated with the emergence of autism spectrum disorder, according to a new Yale-led study in which researchers developed brain organoids from the stem cells of boys diagnosed with the disorder.
And, researchers say, the specific abnormalities seem to be dictated by the size of the child’s brain, a finding that could help doctors and researchers to diagnosis and treat autism in the future.
The findings were ...
Before reaching the skies, the Himalayas had a leg up, new study shows
2023-08-10
Mountain ranges play a key role in global climate, altering weather and shaping the flora and fauna that inhabit their slopes and the valleys below. As warm air rises windward grades and cools, moisture condenses into rain and snow. On the leeward side, it’s quite the opposite. Deserts prevail, a phenomenon known as rain shadow. Thus, the way mountain ranges form is a matter of intense interest among those who study and model climates of the past.
That debate will soon grow more heated with a new paper in the journal Nature Geoscience. A team of researchers ...
Scientists harness the power of AI to shed light on different types of Parkinson’s disease
2023-08-10
Francis Crick Institute press release
Under strict embargo: 16:00hrs BST 10 August 2023
Peer reviewed
Observational study
Cells
Researchers at the Francis Crick Institute and UCL Queen Square Institute of Neurology, working with technology company Faculty AI, have shown that machine learning can accurately predict subtypes of Parkinson’s disease using images of patient-derived stem cells.
Their work, published today in Nature Machine Intelligence, has shown that computer models can accurately classify four subtypes of Parkinson’s disease, with one reaching an accuracy of 95%. This could pave the way for personalised medicine and targeted drug discovery.
Parkinson’s ...