St. John’s hosted the 2025 Canadian Symposium on Long COVID earlier this month, a gathering of top researchers, clinicians, and people living with long COVID.…
Comments closedTag: long COVID
Topic: long COVIDView all posts for the topic: long COVID
Scientists may have discovered what’s behind long COVID-related brain fog
If you’re among the estimated one-in-five Canadians who developed long COVID symptoms after infection with COVID-19, you might be familiar with the memory problems, focusing difficulties and a whole slew of other cognitive impairments that have become emblematic of the condition — collectively known as “brain fog.”
But despite these cognitive symptoms being present in nearly 90 per cent of long COVID cases, the biological mechanism behind why brain fog happens — and how we can treat it — has remained largely elusive. Until now.
A new paper, published in peer-reviewed journal Brain Communications, found that people living with long COVID had more significantly higher levels of a certain brain receptor than their healthy peers. The more they had, the worse their symptoms tended to get, the study suggested.
Comments closedTopic: long COVIDView all posts for the topic: long COVID
Long COVID exhibition co-produced with community opens at the Museum of Vancouver
One in nine Canadians have experienced Long COVID symptoms, ranging from mild to debilitating. A new exhibition at the Museum of Vancouver, co-produced by Simon Fraser University’s Faculty of Health Sciences, invites visitors into the often-invisible world of those living with the life-altering effects of COVID-19.
Long COVID is a chronic condition affecting one or more organ systems that occurs after a SARS-CoV-2 infection and lingers for at least three months as a continuous, relapsing and remitting, or progressive disease state. Despite its prevalence, the condition remains widely misunderstood, under-researched, and stigmatized.
The Living with Long COVID exhibition brings these realities to light and offers a unique opportunity to intimately understand Long COVID through the eyes of those living it.
Comments closedTopic: long COVIDView all posts for the topic: long COVID
Uncovering the Molecular Basis of Long COVID Brain Fog
Researchers use a specialized brain imaging technique to identify a potential biomarker and therapeutic target of Long COVID
Long COVID is a chronic condition that causes cognitive problems known as “brain fog,” but its biological mechanisms remain largely unclear. Now, researchers from Japan used a novel imaging technique to visualize AMPA receptors—key molecules for memory and learning—in the living brain. They discovered that higher AMPA receptor density in patients with Long COVID was closely tied to the severity of their symptoms, highlighting these molecules as potential diagnostic biomarkers and therapeutic targets.
Comments closedTopic: long COVIDView all posts for the topic: long COVID
Long Covid Risk for Children Doubles After a Second Infection, Study Finds
Children and teenagers are twice as likely to develop long Covid after a second coronavirus infection as after an initial infection, a large new study has found.
The study, of nearly a half-million people under 21, published Tuesday in Lancet Infectious Diseases, provides evidence that Covid reinfections can increase the risk of long-term health consequences and contradicts the idea that being infected a second time might lead to a milder outcome, medical experts said.
Dr. Laura Malone, director of the Pediatric Post-Covid-19 Rehabilitation Clinic at Kennedy Krieger Institute in Baltimore, who was not involved in the study, said the findings echo the experience of patients in her clinic.
Comments closedTopic: long COVIDView all posts for the topic: long COVID
Do you have long COVID? Here’s how to tell, and what we know about the condition so far
It has been more than five years since the dawn of the COVID-19 pandemic, yet innumerable Canadians are still living with the consequences months or even years after their initial infection.
Much remains unknown about long COVID, or Post COVID Condition (PCC), despite the ailment affecting millions of Canadians and leaving thousands out of work. But as research continues to develop, scientists have gleaned some pieces of the puzzle.
Here’s what we know so far about what long COVID is, why it happens and how to tell if you have it.
Comments closedTopic: British ColumbiaView all posts for the topic: British Columbia
Funding Changes Might Leave BC’s Long-COVID Patients in the Lurch
Upcoming changes to B.C.’s Medical Services Plan could affect how thousands of long-COVID patients access care.
Starting Sept. 1, MSP is capping all online group medical visits to just 20 patients, to “ensure there can still be a one-on-one interaction between each patient and the attending physician,” the Health Ministry told The Tyee.
Most long-COVID care in B.C. is currently delivered through large online group telehealth sessions from the Bowen Island-based BC Centre for Long COVID, ME/CFS, and Fibromyalgia, or BC-CLMF, which currently has over 5,200 patients — with 25 more referred every day, Dr. Ric Arseneau told The Tyee.
Comments closedTopic: long COVIDView all posts for the topic: long COVID
Biological causes of long COVID discovered: the virus persists for months in the brain
Long COVID, often attributed to a psychosomatic mechanism, has biological causes, a study reveals. Months after the infection, the virus was still active, at low levels, in the brainstem of hamsters.
“We hope to bring relief to the patients who may have heard that they are not sick, that it is ‘in their heads.’ What we are showing in the laboratory is that long COVID has a biological cause!,” says Guilherme Dias de Melo, a veterinarian and researcher in infectious diseases and neuropathologies at the Institut Pasteur. Eighty days after the initial infection, the COVID-19 virus was found, still infectious, in the brainstems of hamsters affected by symptoms similar to those of long COVID, according to the work that he has directed and published in the journal Nature Communications.
Comments closedTopic: long COVIDView all posts for the topic: long COVID
B.C. plans to cut payments for long-COVID clinics, leaving patients in lurch
A virtual clinic that treats patients for long COVID and other chronic conditions is warning that it may have to partially shut down if the province goes ahead with changes on Sept. 1 that would limit the number of patients who can take part in online group appointments.
The B.C. Centre for Long COVID, ME/CFS & Fibromyalgia, run by internal medicine doctors Ric Arseneau and R. Jane McKay, treats 5,000 patients for a variety of chronic diseases, such as myalgic encephalomyelitis, which causes extreme fatigue, and PoTS, a heart rate condition.
After each patient goes through an initial one-on-one consultation, follow-up appointments can take the form of a virtual group medical visit of up to 12 patients, where either Arseneau or McKay take at least one to two questions per patient, or a group medication visit of up to 50 patients, which allows for presentations on different medications and then takes questions from patients.
Comments closedTopic: cognitive issuesView all posts for the topic: cognitive issues
COVID hospitalization linked to cognitive impairment 2 years later
Almost 20% of people who were hospitalized for COVID-19 infections early in the pandemic still had signs of impairment with brain function 2 years after infection, finds a new study in Scientific Reports.
The study population came from Portugal, in a region hit hard by the first wave of the COVID-19 pandemic. Based on hospital admission episodes and SARS-CoV-2 infection status from March 2020 to February 2021, the authors identified four groups: group 1 (101) hospitalized for COVID-19 infections, group 2 (87) hospitalized but uninfected with COVID-19, group 3 (252) infected but not requiring hospitalization, and group 4 (258) uninfected and not hospitalized for any reason.
Cognitive assessments were conducted in two parts 2 years after infection, a general screening using the Montreal Cognitive Assessment and a subsequent neuropsychological assessment conducted by one of four psychologists if the score of the general screening was low. Overall, verbal memory, visual memory, executive functions, language, and information processing speed and attention were evaluated.
Comments closedTopic: long COVIDView all posts for the topic: long COVID
Experts call new Canadian Long COVID guidelines “contradictory” and “deeply concerning”
Key points you should know:
- The McMaster GRADE Centre and Cochrane Canada developed more than 100 recommendations for Long COVID. However, experts say some of these guidelines could harm people with Long COVID.
- Some recommend controversial and scientifically unsupported therapies for the disease: exercise and cognitive behavioral therapy. These treatments mirror harmful and debunked recommendations for myalgic encephalomyelitis. They also contradict major guidelines.
- The majority of pediatric guideline developers came from the same children’s hospital that parents say has psychologized their children’s symptoms. And one committee member has an inconsistently disclosed conflict of interest.
- Professor emeritus Paul Garner attempted to influence the advisory committee, according to emails obtained through a public information access request.
- The organizations provided only one week for public comments on the recommendations. Many people with Long COVID stopped responding because they felt their voices were not being heard.
Topic: long COVIDView all posts for the topic: long COVID
Long COVID May Cause Long-Term Changes in the Heart and Lungs and May Lead to Cardiac and Pulmonary Diseases
Mount Sinai study suggests COVID-19 infection should be considered a risk factor for future cardiopulmonary conditions
New York, NY (May 6, 2025) — Patients suffering from long COVID may exhibit persistent inflammation in the heart and lungs for up to a year following SARS-CoV-2 infection—even when standard medical tests return normal results—potentially placing them at elevated risk for future cardiac and pulmonary conditions. These findings come from a new study conducted by researchers at the Icahn School of Medicine at Mount Sinai and published April 30, in the Journal of Nuclear Medicine.
The study, the largest of its kind using advanced PET/MRI imaging, discovered significant abnormalities in cardiovascular and pulmonary tissues, as well as altered levels of circulating immune-regulating proteins, in long COVID patients. These abnormalities could serve as early warning signs of diseases such as heart failure, valvular heart disease, and pulmonary hypertension.
Comments closed