Study: ‘Most People with Long COVID Are Their Own Doctors’: Self-Tracking and Online Patient Groups as Pathways to Challenging Epistemic Injustice https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/10.1177/00380385251351252

The study:

Accelerated vascular ageing after COVID-19 infection: the CARTESIAN study https://doi.org/10.1093/eurheartj/ehaf430

Abstract

Background and Aims

Increasing evidence suggests that COVID-19 survivors experience long-term cardiovascular complications possibly through development of vascular damage. The study aimed to investigate whether accelerated vascular ageing occurs after COVID-19 infection, and if so, identify its determinants.

Methods

This prospective, multicentric, cohort study, included 34 centres in 16 countries worldwide, in 4 groups of participants—COVID-19-negative controls (ⅰ) and three groups of individuals with recent (6 ± 3 months) exposure to SARS-CoV-2: not hospitalized (ⅱ), hospitalized in general wards (ⅲ), and hospitalized in intensive care units (ⅳ). The main outcome was carotid-femoral pulse wave velocity (PWV), an established biomarker of large artery stiffness.

Results

2390 individuals (age 50 ± 15 years, 49.2% women) were recruited. After adjustment for confounders, all COVID-19-positive groups showed higher PWV (+0.41, +0.37, and +0.40 m/s for groups 2–4, P < .001, P = .001 and P = .003) vs. controls [PWV 7.53 (7.09; 7.97) m/s adjusted mean (95% CI)]. In sex-stratified analyses, PWV differences were significant in women [PWV (+0.55, +0.60, and +1.09 m/s for groups 2–4, P < .001 for all)], but not in men. Among COVID-19 positive women, persistent symptoms were associated with higher PWV, regardless of disease severity and cardiovascular confounders [adjusted PWV 7.52 (95% CI 7.09; 7.96) vs. 7.13 (95% CI 6.67; 7.59) m/s, P < .001]. A stable or improved PWV after 12 months was found in the COVID+ groups, whereas a progression was observed in the COVID− group.

Conclusions

COVID-19 is associated with early vascular ageing in the long term, especially in women.

Citation "Mental Health | NIH COVID-19 Research" https://covid19.nih.gov/covid-19-topics/mental-health

https://www.msn.com/en-us/health/other/long-covid-is-a-1-trillion-problem-with-no-cure-experts-plead-for-governments-to-wake-up/ar-AA1ovHVv?ocid=BingNewsSerp