Speaker 1: Welcome to brain Stuff production of I Heart Radio. Hey
Speaker 1: brain Stuff, Lauren Boga bam here by now we know
Speaker 1: the various symptoms, the fever, shortness of breath, the nausea
Speaker 1: and a nasmia, the signature dry cough. Since the COVID
Speaker 1: nineteen pandemic began, more than two d and thirty four
Speaker 1: million people have become intimately familiar with some combination of
Speaker 1: these telltale signs as they grappled with the novel coronavirus.
Speaker 1: For many, recovery began two or three weeks later. For
Speaker 1: some COVID nineteen patients, though the symptoms have never gone away.
Speaker 1: Months after their first positive test, COVID long haulers still
Speaker 1: experienced splitting headaches, nerve and joint pain, fatigue, cognitive sluggishness
Speaker 1: also known as brain fog, and occasionally distortion of smell
Speaker 1: and taste. This experience has been dubbed long COVID, and
Speaker 1: it's an ongoing fight against symptoms from a virus that
Speaker 1: was supposed to have run its course. It's become prevalent
Speaker 1: enough that the National Institutes of Health or NIH, announced
Speaker 1: a one point one five billion dollar four year initiative
Speaker 1: to study the disease in December. So today, let's take
Speaker 1: a deeper look at what we know about long COVID
Speaker 1: and how doctors might go about treating it. We know
Speaker 1: that symptoms of long COVID set in after an initial
Speaker 1: infection with the coronavirus. However, scientists haven't fully uncovered why
Speaker 1: these symptoms persist in some people but not others. That said,
Speaker 1: there are a few hypotheses. The first is that the
Speaker 1: virus simply never leaves the body, known as viral persistence.
Speaker 1: Certain viruses can take up residents in their host's body.
Speaker 1: Once the acute infection cycle is finished. These renegade viruses
Speaker 1: hide out in tissues where they may act like guerilla fighters,
Speaker 1: causing chronic, low to mid level symptoms punctu ated by
Speaker 1: periods of dormancy. For example, the chickenpox virus normally infects
Speaker 1: kids at a relatively young age, causing mild, if incredibly
Speaker 1: annoying symptoms. However, the virus can stay in the infected
Speaker 1: individual's body well into adulthood, re emerging as a nasty
Speaker 1: case of shingles. A research published in the journal Nature
Speaker 1: in September also suggests that the ebolavirus may remain in
Speaker 1: the systems of those who survive their initial infection, leading
Speaker 1: to chronic issues like muscle fatigue and an increased risk
Speaker 1: of miscarriage. Another hypothesis is that in certain cases, COVID
Speaker 1: nineteen can lead to organ or tissue damage. Inflammation is
Speaker 1: one of your body's natural immune responses to viruses like coronavirus,
Speaker 1: but that natural response can go haywire for some patients.
Speaker 1: COVID nineteen infection can trigger a severe, cascading inflammatory response
Speaker 1: in multiple organ systems, including the lungs, brain, and blood vessels,
Speaker 1: lead in to what's known as a cytokine storm. This
Speaker 1: can result in scar tissue build up in the lungs,
Speaker 1: long term heart complications, or even an elevated risk of stroke. Finally,
Speaker 1: it could be the case that long COVID is triggered
Speaker 1: by other opportunistic viruses. In fact, a June study in
Speaker 1: the journal Pathogens found that COVID nineteen patients are more
Speaker 1: susceptible to infection by a reawakened epstein bar virus, the
Speaker 1: same pathogen that causes mononucleosis. For the article of this
Speaker 1: episode is based on how stuff Work. Spoke with Michael
Speaker 1: van Elzacker PhD, a neuroscience researcher at Harvard Medical School.
Speaker 1: He explained, when there's an acute infection, other viruses can
Speaker 1: often take advantage of that and sort of start to
Speaker 1: do their own thing. These hypotheses and others are being
Speaker 1: investigated by various research groups, including Van Elzecker's. However, he
Speaker 1: cautions that long COVID is likely not a one size
Speaker 1: fits all diagnosis. He said, we have to be a
Speaker 1: little bit careful that we don't consider this some unique,
Speaker 1: standalone problem. It's probably not going to be the same
Speaker 1: thing for every single person. Due to the relatively recent
Speaker 1: emergence of the novel coronavirus, it's difficult to say with
Speaker 1: certainty who is at most risk for long COVID, but
Speaker 1: thanks to the efforts of scientists and statisticians across the globe,
Speaker 1: a much clearer picture is beginning to emerge. In a
Speaker 1: study published in September of twenty twenty one in the
Speaker 1: journal Plos Medicine, researchers found that about thirty six percent
Speaker 1: of patients studied were still experiencing COVID like symptoms three
Speaker 1: and six months after they initially tested positive for the virus.
Speaker 1: Most previous studies have estimated lingering COVID nineteen symptoms in
Speaker 1: between ten and thirty percent of patients, including in April
Speaker 1: one UK study of more than twenty thousand patients, which
Speaker 1: found that thirteen point seven percent of participants were still
Speaker 1: experiencing symptoms at least twelve weeks after diagnosis. The new study,
Speaker 1: which was led by scientists at the University of Oxford,
Speaker 1: searched anonymized data for millions of electronic health records to
Speaker 1: identify a study group of more than two hundred and
Speaker 1: seventy three thousand patients with COVID nineteen. Survivor bias might
Speaker 1: also skew the age numbers for long COVID. A separate
Speaker 1: September one study by the UK Office of National Statistics
Speaker 1: found that people between the ages of fifty and sixty
Speaker 1: nine were most likely to report long term symptoms, especially
Speaker 1: if they had other pre existing health conditions, but as
Speaker 1: other research has pointed out, this might be because older
Speaker 1: folks are more likely to die from the disease. So far,
Speaker 1: it seems that vaccination cuts the risk of developing long
Speaker 1: COVID roughly in half. Unfortunately, treatment options for long COVID
Speaker 1: are fairly limited. At the moment. Because the source of
Speaker 1: long COVID is much trickier to pin down than an
Speaker 1: acute COVID nineteen infection, it puts doctors and patients alike
Speaker 1: in a difficult bind, and without a standard treatment protocol
Speaker 1: in place, medical providers often feel helpless to recommend a
Speaker 1: course of action while their patients continue to suffer. The
Speaker 1: other issue is that chronic conditions are often complex and
Speaker 1: resource intensive to treat, and they come with a certain
Speaker 1: amount of stigma. Study published in Pain Medicine found that
Speaker 1: eighty eight percent of patients who had chronic pain reported
Speaker 1: being disbelieved by their primary care provider about their experience.
Speaker 1: But some hospitals, such as U C. L A Health,
Speaker 1: are beginning to offer long COVID treatment plans accustomized for
Speaker 1: each individual patient, and some of these plans include input
Speaker 1: from psychologists and other mental health professionals in addition to neurologists, cardiologists,
Speaker 1: and infectious disease experts. Health care providers hope that these
Speaker 1: more robust mental health resources will help long COVID patients
Speaker 1: not only manage their cognitive symptoms, but also the emotional
Speaker 1: distress and fatigue that accomp niece chronic illness. Today's episode
Speaker 1: is based on the article one in three who had
Speaker 1: COVID nineteen have long COVID symptoms, says Oxford study on
Speaker 1: how stuff works dot Com written by Joanna Thompson. Brain
Speaker 1: Stuff is production of by Heart Radio in partnership with
Speaker 1: how stuff Works dot Com, and it's produced by Tyler Clain.
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