Adult COVID-19 survivors are at higher risk for digestive diseases, including gastrointestinal (GI) dysfunction, peptic ulcers, gastroesophageal reflux disease (GERD), gallbladder disease, nonalcoholic liver disease, and pancreatic disease—even among patients with mild infections, according to a study published yesterday in BMC Medicine.

Southern Medical University researchers in China mined the UK Biobank database to compare rates of digestive diseases among COVID-19 survivors 30 or more days after infection (112,311), a contemporary comparison group (359,671), and a pre-COVID group (370,979) in the United Kingdom. Median follow-up was 8.4 months.