COVID is surging once again and, if you live in British Columbia, you probably already know someone sick with fever, chills and a sore throat.
As of mid-August, about one in every 19 British Columbians were enduring an infection, with or without symptoms.
Although the media routinely dismisses all COVID infections as an inconsequential nuisance, that’s not what the science says. The virus remains deadlier than the flu and repeated infections can radically change your health.
Comments closedComments closedAs new variants continue to emerge and infect people, older adults remain highly vulnerable to long-term health effects from this pathogen. Continued multidisciplinary research is needed to understand and prevent long COVID to reduce morbidity and mortality and maintain quality of life in older adults.
Since 2020, the condition known as long COVID-19 has become a widespread disability affecting the health and quality of life of millions of people across the globe and costing economies billions of dollars in reduced productivity of employees and an overall drop in the work force.
The intense scientific effort that long COVID sparked has resulted in more than 24,000 scientific publications, making it the most researched health condition in any four years of recorded human history.
Long COVID is a term that describes the constellation of long-term health effects caused by infection with the SARS-CoV-2 virus. These range from persistent respiratory symptoms, such as shortness of breath, to debilitating fatigue or brain fog that limits people’s ability to work, and conditions such as heart failure and diabetes, which are known to last a lifetime.
Comments closedToday, researchers from the University of Minnesota published evidence that the common diabetes drug metformin decreases the amount of SARS-CoV-2 in the body and helps reduce the risk of rebound symptoms if given early in the course of non-severe illness.
The study, published in Clinical Infectious Diseases, suggests metformin may also help prevent long COVID.
The researchers tested metformin against a placebo in 999 adults infected with COVID-19. More than 50% of the study enrollees were vaccinated, and treatment took place when the Omicron variant was the most dominant strain in the United States.
Comments closedPM2.5 particles are tiny enough to enter the bloodstream and lodge in the lungs, where they contribute to respiratory problems such as asthma. They also can prompt heart attacks and strokes. And they have been linked to diabetes, obesity and dementia and may exacerbate COVID.
Comments closedAlthough many Canadians act as though the pandemic has ended, the airborne virus that causes COVID-19 continues to evolve at an amazing pace with devastating consequences for both individuals and the public at large.
Comments closedResearchers increasingly find that the effects of infection by SARS-CoV-2 extend to the cardiovascular system.
Comments closedCovid infections are putting people at higher risk of diabetes, strokes, heart disease and other long-term illnesses – but experts warn it may be decades before the full impact is known.
Comments closedGiven that 103 million Americans and 770 million people worldwide have been diagnosed as having contracted COVID-19, a future of misery could await a stunningly large cross-section of humanity.
Comments closedComments closedOur findings highlight the substantial cumulative burden of health loss due to long COVID and emphasize the ongoing need for health care for those faced with long COVID. It appears that the effects of long COVID for many will not only impact such patients and their quality of life, but potentially will contribute to a decline in life expectancy and also may impact labor participation, economic productivity, and societal well-being.
People who survived Covid-19 early in the pandemic, before there were vaccines, continued to be at higher risk for a slew of health problems for up to two years after they got over their initial infections, compared to others who didn’t test positive, a new study finds, and that was especially true if they were hospitalized.
These health problems include heart problems, blood clots, diabetes, neurologic complications, fatigue and difficulties with mental health and have come to be known collectively as long Covid.
Comments closedPeople who endured even mild cases of covid-19 are at heightened risk two years later for lung problems, fatigue, diabetes and certain other health problems typical of long covid, according to a new study that casts fresh light on the virus’s true toll.
The analysis, published Monday in the journal Nature Medicine, is believed to be the first to document the extent to which an array of aftereffects that patients can develop — as part of the diffuse and sometimes debilitating syndrome known as long covid — linger beyond the initial months or year after they survived a coronavirus infection.
Comments closed“In the 3 months postinfection, people who’d had COVID-19 had higher rates of death and many health conditions including heart failure, diabetes, Alzheimer’s disease, and depression.”
Metformin—a cheap, safe, and widely available diabetes drug—could reduce the incidence of long covid if given during the acute phase of covid-19, a new study indicates.
A two week course of metformin given within three days of testing positive for SARS-CoV-2 led to 40% fewer long covid diagnoses over the following 10 months compared with people who had taken placebo, according to a randomised controlled trial.
Leave a comment“People with repeat infections were twice as likely to die and three times as likely to be hospitalized, have heart problems or experience blood clots than were people who were infected only once. In a surprising twist, vaccination status didn’t seem to have an impact — although other studies show vaccines to be protective. Whether these results hold true for the general population is up for debate. The Veterans Affairs cohort was made up mostly of older white men, which is not representative of the wider population.”
Comments closedDo not listen to powers that be who pretend that getting infected with COVID multiple times is now no big deal. They’re asking you to lower your guard for a nasty virus that can invade the brain, disregulate the immune system and damage the vascular system.
This strategy has led to predictable results — more direct deaths, more excess deaths, more disease and some 1.4 million Canadians reporting some form of long COVID over the last two years.
Comments closedPeople who get COVID-19 have a greater risk of developing diabetes up to a year later, even after a mild SARS-CoV-2 infection, compared with those who never had the disease, a massive study of almost 200,000 people shows.
Comments closed