ISLAMABAD: While millions of others suffer from fatigue and other symptoms of the long Covid, researchers have presented new evidence of fatigue triggers after SARS-COV-2 infection.
The team from the University of Vienna and the Medical University of Vienna, led by chemist Christopher Gerner, has shown that an exaggerated anti-inflammatory reaction is probably to blame for the prolonged Covid syndrome.
Although in the past autoimmunity was suspected to be the main cause of prolonged covid, there is no evidence of concomitant inflammatory processes in patients with prolonged covid syndrome.
According to the new study published in iScience, it is not the over-inflammatory reaction, but the anti-inflammatory ingredients that cause the prolonged Covid syndrome.
Contrary to previous expectations, the researchers were able to locate several proteins, lipids and anti-inflammatory metabolites in long-term Covid patients, which on the one hand can contribute to the maximum significant symptoms of Long Covid syndrome and, on the other. On the other hand, they point to the formation of polarized macrophages as the cause, Medical Daily reported.
During a viral infection there is usually a very strong activation of the immune system. But in virtually all of the long Covid patients studied, corresponding markers such as cytokines, acute-phase proteins, and eicosanoids, which involve inflammation, were poorly detectable.
“All prospective markers of acute inflammatory processes were either below healthy donor levels or not detectable at all in CSF patients,” Gerner said.
Surprisingly, the differences were more pronounced in long-term covid patients and asymptomatic patients recovering from covid disease than in healthy controls.
“This localization shows that, in fact, there is a residual inflammatory reaction detectable in recovered asymptomatic patients, whereas long-standing covid patients had the opposite location,” Gerner added.
The researchers are confident that, in the short or long term, they will offer especially advanced diagnostic features for prolonged Covid syndrome and, more importantly, follow-up strategies to assess treatment effects.