Early findings from the National Institutes of Health’s
study highlight a dozen symptoms that most distinguish long COVID, the catchall
term for the sometimes debilitating health problems that can last for months or
years after even a mild case of COVID-19.
Millions worldwide have had long COVID, with dozens of
widely varying symptoms including fatigue and brain fog. Scientists still don’t
know what causes it, why it only strikes some people, how to treat it -– or
even how to best diagnose it. Better defining the condition is key for research
to get those answers.
“Sometimes I hear people say, ’Oh, everybody’s a little
tired,’” said Dr. Leora Horwitz of NYU Langone Health, one of the study
authors. “No, there’s something different about people who have long COVID and
that’s important to know.”
The new research, published Thursday in the Journal of the
American Medical Association, includes more than 8,600 adults who had COVID-19
at different points in the pandemic, comparing them to another 1,100 who hadn’t
been infected.
By some estimates, roughly 1 in 3 of COVID-19 patients have
experienced long COVID. That’s similar to NIH study participants who reported
getting sick before the omicron variant began spreading in the U.S. in December
2021. That’s also when the study opened, and researchers noted that people who
already had long COVID symptoms might have been more likely to enroll.
But about 2,230 patients had their first coronavirus
infection after the study started, allowing them to report symptoms in real
time -– and only about 10% experienced long-term symptoms after six months.
Prior research has suggested the risk of long COVID has
dropped since omicron appeared; its descendants still are spreading.
The bigger question is how to identify and help those who
already have long COVID.
The new study zeroed in on a dozen symptoms that may help
define long COVID: fatigue; brain fog; dizziness; gastrointestinal symptoms;
heart palpitations; sexual problems; loss of smell or taste; thirst; chronic
cough; chest pain; worsening symptoms after activity and abnormal movements.
The researchers assigned scores to the symptoms, seeking to
establish a threshold that eventually could help ensure similar patients are
enrolled in studies of possible long COVID treatments, as part of the NIH study
or elsewhere, for apples-to-apples comparison.
Horwitz stressed that doctors shouldn’t use that list to
diagnose someone with long COVID — it’s a potential research tool only.
Patients may have one of those symptoms, or many -– or other symptoms not on
the list — and still be suffering long-term consequences of the coronavirus.
Everyone’s doing studies of long COVID yet “we don’t even
know what that means,” Horwitz said.
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