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posted by martyb on Monday August 03 2020, @04:04AM   Printer-friendly
from the quantify-*this*-in-dollars dept.

COVID-19 long-term effects: People report ongoing fatigue, brain fog and breathlessness, so what's happening in the body?:

As with many aspects of the new coronavirus, researchers are trying to pull together data to understand the medium-term health effects more fully.

[...] Its impact on the heart still isn't clear, Dr Gallo says, but studies published in recent weeks describe abnormalities in the hearts of patients who have completely cleared the virus.

"[The researchers] asked them about their just general wellbeing and a lot of the patients are commenting on just being generally exhausted and having shortness of breath, some of them having palpitations, atypical chest pain," she says.

What's more, many of these patients weren't that sick with COVID-19 — most of them had managed their illness at home, rather than needing hospital treatment.

[...] Other persistent symptoms people report have to do with the brain: "brain fog", sleeplessness and headaches.'

[...]Fatigue, which is more than just a feeling of tiredness, and can be associated with things like a "foggy" brain, slowed reflexes and headaches, is usually a useful response to infections.

"There's a good reason for that — mounting an immune response to fight an infection takes a huge amount of energy," Dr Landowski says.

"The body wants you to do as little as possible, so you can conserve energy and divert it to the immune system.

Then, once the infection is eliminated, the fatigue dissipates.

"However, in some people, the switch that returns the body back to normal seems to fail, resulting in chronic fatigue."

[...] "Regardless of which cells it's infecting, if it's infecting cells in the brain, it could be causing damage, which could have long-term consequences," Dr Lawson said.

Even if the virus doesn't infect brain cells directly, inflammation caused by the virus could also cause damage to the brain.

Some experts are concerned the medium-term effects on the brain might have consequences that reach further.

In an article in the Journal of Alzheimers Disease Reports, experts raise the question of whether people who've had COVID-19, particularly those whose symptoms included loss of taste or smell, will be at greater risk of conditions including Alzheimer's disease after they recover.

The last-linked article from above (which is open-access), is excerpted here with links sprinkled on some of the unusual terms:

Some of the earliest neurologic findings were in those experiencing COVID-19-related anosmia and dysgeusia [2]. Important to this equation is that COVID-19 may prove to be a risk factor for future neurodegenerative disorders, beyond that which would be expected in the context of other comorbidities and genetic predispositions. Anosmia and the biological processes resulting in this symptom contribute to grey matter loss in cortical regions [3], which is similar to where pathognomonic amyloid plaques are often discovered [4]. Olfactory dysfunction has also been found to be associated with the graduation from mild cognitive impairment (MCI) to AD, serving as a potential identifier for preclinical stages [5].

[...] It has become clear that many age-related conditions are found among those testing positive for COVID-19, though some of these are also related to lifestyle and family history. ... Systolic hypertension in midlife, rather than only late life, is associated with 18% and 25% increased risk of AD, respectively ... These cardiovascular risk factors are directly related to cerebrovascular consequences, such as hypoperfusion, a symptom strongly associated with MCI and AD [14]. Plasma exchange and albumin for AD patients with hypoperfusion, for example, has been shown to improve cognitive deficits and initiate cerebrospinal fluid (CSF) amyloid-β (Aβ)...

Journal Reference:
Jack C. Lennon. Neurologic and Immunologic Complications of COVID-19: Potential Long-Term Risk Factors for AlzheimerΓÇÖs Disease [open], Journal of Alzheimer's Disease Reports (DOI: 10.3233/ADR-200190)

Got it! The millennials surviving COVID-19 today may have higher chances of an early onset of dementia than the baby boomers of today.


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  • (Score: 1) by khallow on Monday August 03 2020, @01:04PM (14 children)

    by khallow (3766) Subscriber Badge on Monday August 03 2020, @01:04PM (#1030696) Journal
    Just because you're far too lazy to back your words, doesn't make them right. I see instead indications of deep error.
  • (Score: 2) by RS3 on Monday August 03 2020, @01:32PM (12 children)

    by RS3 (6367) on Monday August 03 2020, @01:32PM (#1030715)

    Thank you all for answering my question and a truly great discussion. You're all making great philosophical arguments, but my take on this discussion: large amounts of vitamin C are not likely to hurt most people, so why not try it.

    Khallow, if you don't want it, then don't, but that's not a strong enough reason to discourage others. If you can cite examples of vitamin C being a problem for some people, conditions, etc., then please let us know- I'd like to know.

    • (Score: 0, Troll) by Anonymous Coward on Monday August 03 2020, @02:21PM (1 child)

      by Anonymous Coward on Monday August 03 2020, @02:21PM (#1030735)

      Thank you all for answering my question and a truly great discussion. You're all making great philosophical arguments, but my take on this discussion: large amounts of vitamin C are not likely to hurt most people, so why not try it.

      And smearing your entire body with honey or pancake syrup or washing your hair with your own urine are unlikely to harm you either. So why not try it?

      Wearing a butt plug 18 hours a day won't likely hurt you either. And it will stop most explosive diarrhea too! Why not try it?

      The links above [soylentnews.org] talk about *very* sick people, who are likely on IV nutrition or feeding tubes.

      Taking massive doses of Vitamin C will ensure that you won't get scurvy [wikipedia.org], but it provides no known mitigation or positive impact on COVID-19.

      But hey, as long as it won't hurt/kill you, why not?

      Dancing naked in the street won't hurt you, nor will baking bread, writing poetry or having multiple milk enemas every day. So why not try them?

      • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday August 04 2020, @01:39AM

        by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday August 04 2020, @01:39AM (#1031063)

        Dancing naked in the street won't hurt you

        Pictures or it didn't happen.

    • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday August 03 2020, @08:00PM

      by Anonymous Coward on Monday August 03 2020, @08:00PM (#1030907)

      Kidney stones and expensive urine for two.

    • (Score: 2, Insightful) by khallow on Monday August 03 2020, @10:31PM (8 children)

      by khallow (3766) Subscriber Badge on Monday August 03 2020, @10:31PM (#1030963) Journal

      If you can cite examples of vitamin C being a problem for some people, conditions, etc., then please let us know- I'd like to know.

      Such as the original poster advocating dosing vitamin C to the point of overt toxicity? Inducing diarrhea in a well-developed covid infection is a problem, for example. And what are you getting for that extreme dosage (up to 1000x times normal dose!)? I just see some babble about free radicals. The human body isn't going to be rebuilding tissue 1000x faster nor will have 1000x more radicals to neutralize.

      I tend to increase dosage of vitamin C when I get sick, because well I've heard it helps. But those levels are way beyond a mere increase.

      • (Score: 2) by RS3 on Tuesday August 04 2020, @01:05AM (4 children)

        by RS3 (6367) on Tuesday August 04 2020, @01:05AM (#1031051)

        I'm sorry, my previous comment was posted in error, due to being rushed. I will always wish we could edit posts that were just plain mistakes. It was an accidental mashup, not intended for you. Again, sorry. Too much caffeine likely also.

        Anyway, I absolutely agree with you. As I've posted before, and I guess I need to repeat many things every time I post, our body chemistries are all different, and what works well for one person and set of medical problems might be poison to another person. I'm never a fan of one-size-fits-all / sweeping generalizations. And certainly not a fan of anything done to toxicity! But I'm reminded- chemotherapy is toxicity by definition, and often works, so again, we're all different, diseases are different, and who knows, maybe in some people high-dose C could kill a disease faster than the host human?

        People get so intense in these discussions. I'm still learning about this type of interaction- not sure why people get so bunched up. It'd be nice if people could just toss ideas around without all the vitriol. But I digress... Back to the local topic- C might be good, but don't take it in chalky pill form.

        • (Score: 2) by hendrikboom on Sunday August 23 2020, @02:39AM (3 children)

          by hendrikboom (1125) Subscriber Badge on Sunday August 23 2020, @02:39AM (#1040626) Homepage Journal

          Chemotherapy for cancer is very carefully managed toxicity. Not try an overdose and then cut back if you survive.

          • (Score: 2) by RS3 on Sunday August 23 2020, @03:26AM (2 children)

            by RS3 (6367) on Sunday August 23 2020, @03:26AM (#1040640)

            Absolutely. I think a lot of medicines are basically poison, but given in careful doses they do just enough good. Steroids come to mind. You've probably heard that people used to take strychnine for "what ails you". https://www.encyclopedia.com/medicine/drugs/pharmacology/strychnine [encyclopedia.com]

            Friend of mine's father had esophageal cancer, caught somewhat late, got chemo, was improving, but for some reason the doctors gave a big dose that killed him. He might not have recovered from the cancer no matter what, so it might have been a last-ditch effort.

            There's a medical oncologist in my area that is extremely precise (he's Swiss), and who that treated my dad 8 years ago. Dad fully recovered and had no measurable chemo side effects.

            • (Score: 3, Insightful) by hendrikboom on Sunday August 23 2020, @11:17AM (1 child)

              by hendrikboom (1125) Subscriber Badge on Sunday August 23 2020, @11:17AM (#1040740) Homepage Journal

              My wife was a hematologist, who sometimes treated some kinds of cancer patients.
              She told me that these toxins had to be dosed very accurately. A slight variation in dosage could make the difference between death, uselessness, or therapeutic effect. This required biochemical monitoring to adjust for the ways different patients would metabolize the toxins. The trick was to find a toxin that killed the cancer more than it harmed the patient. Even with the same kind of cancer, different patients would need different toxins.

              High-tech medicine.

              -- hendrik

              • (Score: 2) by RS3 on Sunday August 23 2020, @11:43AM

                by RS3 (6367) on Sunday August 23 2020, @11:43AM (#1040745)

                Yes, the aforementioned Swiss oncologist is primarily hematologist. He insisted on weighing my dad, who could not walk nor stand at the time (but fully recovered a year later) and we had great difficulty getting him on a scale. Dr. didn't have the large scale for weighing wheelchairs, so we did our best and got him weighed. That Dr. wins best of (metropolitan area) awards by major local magazine.

      • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday August 04 2020, @10:49AM (2 children)

        by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday August 04 2020, @10:49AM (#1031189)

        The human body isn't going to be rebuilding tissue 1000x faster nor will have 1000x more radicals to neutralize.

        For burn injury theyve given over 100 g/day vitamin c IV and seen the patient is deficient again within 2 days. Not going to bother linking it since you don't seem to have read any of the dozen refs already linked here.

        • (Score: 1) by khallow on Tuesday August 04 2020, @01:40PM (1 child)

          by khallow (3766) Subscriber Badge on Tuesday August 04 2020, @01:40PM (#1031224) Journal
          Link or shut up. I'm tired of your games.
          • (Score: 1) by khallow on Tuesday August 04 2020, @08:48PM

            by khallow (3766) Subscriber Badge on Tuesday August 04 2020, @08:48PM (#1031402) Journal
            To elaborate on my post, earlier some AC dropped five links which purported to support his claim that extremely high dosage of vitamin C was helpful in recovering from covid. Of those five, one outright rejected the hypothesis and none of them had large sample size or dealt with virus infections - anything similar to a covid infection.
  • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday August 03 2020, @01:35PM

    by Anonymous Coward on Monday August 03 2020, @01:35PM (#1030716)

    Their words are backed by the linked article.