Serum ferritin level during hospitalization is associated with Brain Fog after COVID-19, 2023, Ishikura et al

Abstract


The coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) remains an epidemic worldwide. Most patients suffer residual symptoms, the so-called “Long COVID,” which includes respiratory and neuropsychiatric symptoms. Brain Fog, one of the symptoms of Long COVID, is a major public health issue because it can impair patients’ quality of life even after recovery from the disease. However, neither the pathogenesis nor the treatment of this condition remains unknown.

We focused on serum ferritin levels in this study and collected information on the onset of Brain Fog through questionnaires and found that high ferritin levels during hospitalization were associated with the occurrence of Brain Fog. In addition, we excluded confounders as far as possible using propensity score analyses and found that ferritin was independently associated with Brain Fog in most of the models.

We conducted phase analysis and evaluated the interaction of each phase with ferritin levels and Brain Fog. We found a positive correlation between serum ferritin levels during hospitalization and Brain Fog after COVID-19. High ferritin levels in patients with Brain Fog may reflect the contribution of chronic inflammation in the development of Brain Fog. This study provides a novel insight into the pathogenic mechanism of Brain Fog after COVID-19.

https://www.nature.com/articles/s41598-023-40011-0

 

That's a curious result. Usually when ferritin is an issue, it's too low. I wonder if the problem isn't too much iron, but some reaction of the body that increases ferritin during a Covid infection that leaves aftereffects.

 

See Newly uncovered biochemical and functional aspects of ferritin (2023, The FASEB Journal). The thread links to the article which is a readable, but not downloadable, PDF.

See also Attenuation of ferroptosis as a potential therapeutic target for neuropsychiatric manifestations of post-COVID syndrome (2023) and this comment in the thread for Ferritin and ME/CFS in post COVID-19, an unexpected facet of the hyperferritinemic syndrome? (2023)