News about Long Covid including its relationship to ME/CFS 2020 to 2021

Status
Not open for further replies.
“a little more psychology and a little less T cells would be welcome”

Wessely doing his usual ex cathedra schtick.
 
https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2022/jan/12/long-covid-trial-britain-short-term-virus

I’m leading a long Covid trial – it’s clear Britain has underestimated
its impact

Amitava Banerjee

Scientists and politicians have focused on the short-term impact of
the virus – but we can no longer leave chronic patients to struggle

Wed 12 Jan 2022 05.57 EST

Last modified on Wed 12 Jan 2022 06.01 EST

[..]

Prevailing ways of thinking in science, healthcare and policy haven’t
necessarily helped, either. For example, an outdated classification
distinguishes diseases as “organic” or “functional”. Organic
conditions, such as heart attacks, rheumatoid arthritis and bowel
cancer are those that cause changes detectable by investigations such
as blood tests or scans.

Functional conditions, such as irritable bowel syndrome and chronic
fatigue syndrome, do not necessarily cause changes detectable by
tests, or the right test may not yet be available. Stigma and
misconceptions arising from this classification may lead to functional
conditions being overlooked, which is surely familiar to many with
long Covid.
Click to expand...
 
Just saw psychology professor Jonas R. Kunst share this article on twitter commenting that Russian flu was also associated with inflammatory conditions and fatigue reminiscent of Long Covid.

The article is paywalled, so don't know if this is prof. Kunst's thoughts, or if the article is about long term effects of Russian flu.

Anyway, here's the link if anyone with access want to take a look.
The Telegraph Was the Russian flu a "coronavirus"? What the 1890's pandemic tells us about how Covid might end
 
Kalliope said:
Just saw psychology professor Jonas R. Kunst share this article on twitter commenting that Russian flu was also associated with inflammatory conditions and fatigue reminiscent of Long Covid.

The article is paywalled, so don't know if this is prof. Kunst's thoughts, or if the article is about long term effects of Russian flu.

Anyway, here's the link if anyone with access want to take a look.
The Telegraph Was the Russian flu a "coronavirus"? What the 1890's pandemic tells us about how Covid might end
Click to expand...

This is the only mention of Long Covid:

Russian flu was also associated with inflammatory conditions and fatigue reminiscent of long Covid. Sir Morrell Mackenzie, a Victorian throat specialist, noted that the influenza had a propensity to “run up and down the nervous keyboard stirring up disorder and pain in different parts of the body with what almost seems malicious caprice”. Marked neurological symptoms included intense headaches and shooting pains, as well as a loss of taste and smell.
Click to expand...

Wow:

At a time when most medics subscribed to miasma theory – the idea that diseases were the result of poisonous exhalations from the earth carried on the wind – little consideration was given to social distancing or masks. Instead, doctors emphasised the importance of bed rest and a positive state of mind, lest fear become the “mother of infection”.

The Lancet medical journal even went as far as to blame “dread of the epidemic” on the worldwide telegraphic network which, in 1889, had enabled Reuters correspondents to transmit news of the pandemic from St Petersburg well ahead of domestic outbreaks.
Click to expand...

That medicine (and the Lancet) still has a fixation with pseudoscience over a hundred years later is pretty appalling.

Moreover, this goes to show that the nonsense from modern-day charlatans about so-called cultural illnesses and mass hysteria (spread via the internet) isn't even original.

Article can be read in full here.
 
Last edited:
RollingStone What the Long Covid Numbers Aren't Telling Us

Quote:

Although the current definitions of Long Covid are incredibly broad, before they existed, there was even less certainty about what “counted” as Long Covid among patients, researchers, and medical professionals. “Long Covid means different things to different people,” says Jaime Seltzer, director of medical and scientific outreach for #MEAction, an advocacy organization for people living with myalgic encephalomyelitis/chronic fatigue syndrome (ME/CFS) — including the estimated 10 to 12 percent of those with Long Covid who will develop the condition. “Studies are measuring Long Covid at different intervals and capturing different populations within Long Covid, which may explain the discrepancy in the statistics.”

For example, a study that includes a large number of people who were hospitalized, may be capturing a segment of people who are dealing with post-intensive care syndrome, Seltzer explains. Or, data gathered soon after a person’s acute Covid-19 infection may identify people with post-viral fatigue that is recoverable, while missing people who develop ME/CFS months later.
 
rvallee said:
So the innate immune system is activated, but the adaptive immune system is struggling.
Click to expand...

I think a low-level of naive T cells in blood is quite hard to interpret. My immediate reaction is that the most likely explanation is that the immune system is busy. If people are buying lots of umbrellas because of unusual rain the shops will be short on umbrellas but that is just because they are doing their job.

The citation mentions IFN-beta so it may be that they are looking at a situation where lymphoid tissue has unregulated signals needed for busy responses and the naive T cells are all getting snapped up by the responsive tissue via unregulated endothelium.

It would be very useful if this sort of trafficking change could be documented in a post-viral state like post-Covid. I very much doubt that any of this adds up to dysregulation though. It would be quite consistent with the immune response going on being busy according to normal rules.But the puzzle with ME is that the usual activation-related. cytokines do not seem to be showing up. The one most often mentioned is TGF=beta which is mostly a down regulator.
 
rvallee said:
Interesting. Only question is what are the dogs detecting. 50% positive identification of LC with 0% false positive from controls.

Now seriously why don't we still have a damn electronic nose? It's amazing how advanced optics have progressed but for scents? Dogs are still the highest level of tech.

Screening for SARS-CoV-2 persistence in Long COVID patients using sniffer dogs and scents from axillary sweats samples
https://www.medrxiv.org/content/10.1101/2022.01.11.21268036v1

Objectives: Dogs can be trained to identify several substances not detected by humans, corresponding to specific volatile organic compounds (VOCs). The presence of VOCs, triggered by SARS-CoV-2 infection, was tested in sweat from Long COVID patients.

Patients and methods: An axillary sweat sample of Long COVID patients and of COVID-19 negative, asymptomatic individuals was taken at home to avoid any hospital contact. Swabs were randomly placed in olfaction detection cones, and the material sniffed by at least 2 trained dogs.

Results: Forty-five Long COVID patients, mean age 45 (6-71), 73.3% female, with prolonged symptoms evolving for a mean of 15.2 months (5-22) were tested. Dogs discriminated in a positive way 23/45 (51.1%) Long COVID patients versus 0/188 (0%) control individuals (p<.0001).

Conclusion:This study suggests the persistence of a viral infection in some Long COVID patients and the possibility of providing a simple, highly sensitive, non-invasive test to detect viral presence, during acute and extended phases of COVID-19.​
Click to expand...
Trial By Error: French Dogs on the Trail; Impact of Long Covid on the US Job Market

https://www.virology.ws/2022/01/14/...id-impact-of-long-covid-on-the-us-job-market/
 
Said before but worth saying here and elsewhere again. One common thread among the changes in perception of LC and ME is a person now coming into contact with the illness either themselves or someone they know well.

Otherwise the default position is the one the Wessely school has pushed so hard. That only the weak-willed and fearful succumb. It. is. incorrect. And based on nothing but prejudice.

ETA: Just for a change, to show a little positivity, I have to say there is a crack forming in that BPS wall of illness denial and it is letting the light in.
 
Snowdrop said:
Otherwise the default position is the one the Wessely school has pushed so hard. That only the weak-willed and fearful succumb. It. is. incorrect. And based on nothing but prejudice.
Click to expand...
As the threat of catching Covid begins to recede people will inevitably adopt this attitude. There is only a window of opportunity to get LC taken seriously before this view becomes the norm. With no longer a personal threat to themselves they will dismiss it as only affecting the 'weak/undeserving' in society and in doing so patting themselves on the back for being so strong/deserving to not having been affected. 'Long Covid' will become the new 'Chronic Fatigue Syndrome'.
 
Stuff The narrative of Omicron as a 'milder' variant is dangerous, given what we know about long Covid, experts warn

quotes:
Otago University’s Emeritus Professor Warren Tate is a biochemist who has been studying myalgic encephalomyelitis (ME), also known as chronic fatigue syndrome (CFS) for more than 30 years.

In 2020, his team proved that ME/CFS is not psychosomatic but has a biological basis. The research identified changes in important physiological and biochemical pathways and systems in affected patients when compared with healthy people.

Tate is now collaborating with Brooks to study long Covid and post-viral illnesses more comprehensively.

Both have been working with the team led by Resia Pretorius, a professor of physiological sciences at Stellenbosch University in South Africa, whose lab has found significant microclot formation in the blood of long Covid patients.

...

Kurt Krause, a professor of biochemistry at Otago University and a Fellow of the Infectious Diseases Society of America, is hopeful the focus on long Covid will lead to increased funding and awareness for post-viral illnesses generally.

He says while some post-viral complications are obvious and easy to document (if HIV is not treated, for example, it can target and weaken the immune system, leading to AIDS), others are harder to quantify.

“These are more functional complaints: inability to concentrate, low energy, brain fog. We’ve seen these symptoms for decades, but I can’t draw blood to confirm them.”

Thanks to research done on ME/CFS, it’s well-established that functional complaints are “real” and work is being done to figure out causes and treatments.

“In previous conditions like this, there was always this initial struggle that people who were suffering were dismissed. I’m hoping we won’t have that this time. I’m hoping we’ll be wise enough to realise people could very well be having long-term effects from Covid. And then, do our best to take care of those people.”
 
Status
Not open for further replies.
Back
Top Bottom