March 27, 2023 – Excellent news and unhealthy information on the lengthy COVID entrance: Sure teams of individuals – like ladies, people who smoke, and people who had extreme COVID-19 infections – are at a better danger of lengthy COVID, a evaluate of greater than 800,000 sufferers has discovered. 

That’s the unhealthy information. But, researchers additionally discovered that sufferers who had at the very least two doses of the COVID vaccine had a considerably decrease danger of getting lengthy COVID down the road. 

“Not solely is it essential to acknowledge which people could also be at excessive danger of creating PCC [post−COVID-19 condition] and to supply follow-up care; it’s crucial to plan population-level public well being measures,” wrote lead creator Vassilios Vassiliou, PhD, a professor of cardiac drugs on the College of East Anglia in Norwich, England, and his crew. 

The analysis, printed within the journal JAMA Inner Drugs, mixed 41 beforehand printed articles that included data from 860,783 sufferers. The evaluate uncovered a slew of demographic traits that have been considerably linked to lengthy COVID, together with feminine intercourse, being over 40 years previous, smoking, having a excessive physique mass index (BMI), and hospitalization as a result of a COVID-19 an infection. 

Lengthy COVID, as outlined by the World Well being Group, is the continuation of COVID signs or the beginning of recent signs at the very least 3 months after preliminary an infection.

Having different situations – like nervousness, despair, bronchial asthma, diabetes, and being immunocompromised – have been additionally linked to a better chance of getting lengthy COVID, researchers reported. 

That cisgender ladies are at a better danger of lengthy COVID falls consistent with earlier analyses, suggesting that hormones would possibly play a job “in perpetuating the hyperinflammatory standing of the acute part of COVID-19 even after restoration.” 

The identical goes for earlier research on vaccination standing and lengthy COVID danger – like a lot of the earlier analysis on the topic, vaccinations have been discovered to have a protecting impact on lengthy COVID. 

However lengthy COVID – all of the methods it presents itself, how widespread it’s, and what we are able to do about it – nonetheless stays considerably of a thriller, even 3 years into the pandemic. 

“Whereas this and different knowledge on vaccines recommend that there are elements that may cut back the chance of lengthy COVID, nothing as of but can utterly remove the chance of lengthy COVID. The one assure in opposition to lengthy COVID is to not get COVID,” stated Stanford College major care professor Linda Geng, MD, PhD. 

“Moreover, we nonetheless wouldn’t have any efficient remedy established for the tens of millions who have already got lengthy COVID, and we urgently want randomized managed trials to assist present these solutions,” she stated.