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Researchers find COVID-19 causes mitochondrial dysfunction in heart and other organs

This study provides us with strong evidence that we need to stop looking at COVID-19 as strictly an upper respiratory disease and start viewing it as a systemic disorder that impacts multiple organs. The continued dysfunction we observed in organs other than the lungs suggests that mitochondrial dysfunction could be causing long-term damage to the internal organs of these patients.

Joseph Guarnieri et al, Core mitochondrial genes are downregulated during SARS-CoV-2 infection of mammalian hosts, Science Translational Medicine (2023). DOI: 10.1126/scitranslmed.abq1533. www.science.org/doi/10.1126/scitranslmed.abq1533