14 ms·
Long Covid, Cognitive Impairment, and the Stalled Decline in Disability Rates
- 18amxn18 4y ago
- ceeplusplus 4y agoThe data showing the difference between percentage of college graduates and noncollege graduates who believe they have long COVID seems to point to a placebo effect. I don't see why college grads and non-college grads would have any reason to be affected differently by a virus.
- PraetorianGourd 4y agoProbably because they were able to work remotely at a higher rate and thus fewer were actually infected. Being diagnosed with COVID was not a prerequisite for this study.
- epgui 4y agoPeople with more (or later) education will often have better outcomes for things like Alzheimer’s Disease. It’s not unreasonable to think that education may have a protective role.
- hericium 4y agoI agree. Research papers and books (can currently think of one[1]) mention that there is more nicotine users among less-educated. It's not far-fetched to assume that this substance is not atypical and educated people make in general more health-conscious choices. [1] https://moleculeofmore.com/ https://moleculeofmore.com/
- yywwbbn 4y agoNicotine itself is not particularly dangerous and smoking cigarettes with no nicotine would be just as bad for your lungs. The main with it is the addiction however there is bo clear link between long term use of nicotine itself and any significantly negative health outcomes.
- PraetorianGourd 4y agoI would argue that education enables a lifestyle that is protective, rather than education itself.
- Retric 4y agoEducation is also self selected, so it likely representative of other choices as well.
- PraetorianGourd 4y agoIt just isn’t though. Opportunity is not doled out equally. Yes, everyone has the chance to be educated. But some schools are better, some families more supportive etc. And certainly there are exceptions that defy their environment but they are exceptions.
- Retric 4y agoThat doesn’t distract from the fact that many that have the opportunity chose not seek or continue higher education. This is especially true post collage.
- matthewdgreen 4y agoOne theory is that educated people compensate better for decline on cognitive tests, basically by “muscling through it”. I’ve heard it doesn’t change the overall course of the disease much but it does make the decline less noticeable in the early stages.
- cameldrv 4y agoThere is now fairly substantial evidence that COVID can cause your brain to physically shrink. Maybe some people experience a placebo effect, but long COVID is clearly a real, physical disease at this point.
- mudx 4y agoCollege graduates may be less likely to be exposed to larger quantities of COVID molecules (e.g. driving via car, vs taking the subway, or any other number of possibilities), or perhaps they had better treatment of their COVID due to their financial capabilities.
- hyperpape 4y agoFar too quick. Of course, there isn't a direct causal connection between college degrees and severity of Covid, but there are huge average differences between more and less educated individuals, including lots of health related outcomes. https://www.economist.com/graphic-detail/2021/03/17/educated-americans-live-longer-as-others-die-younger https://www.economist.com/graphic-detail/2021/03/17/educated... (chosen basically at random, basically any relevant google search will get you many articles saying similar things). It's also unbelievable that these groups don't differ in frequency of having Covid, vaccination rates, likelihood of having had Covid in 2020 vs. post vaccination, etc. Since we know vaccination has some protective effect against long-covid, that's another factor. This doesn't mean these reports reflect underlying reality permanently (maybe a desk jockey reports disability differently than someone with a physically demanding job, maybe other factors make people less likely to report). But there are plenty of ways education can predict outcomes that aren't just reporting bias.
- brnaftr361 4y agoObesity among college graduates is relatively low in aggregate, and obesity is associated with LC.
- cjbgkagh 4y agoThere are strong selection criteria biases at work here; this does not indicate psychosomatic.
- taeric 4y agoI think you are right, but I don't think placebo necessarily means psychosomatic. Does it?
- cjbgkagh 4y agoIf a placebo is effective it’s presumed to psychosomatic as there have been no underlying medical changes. In this case I presumed that the term ‘placebo’ was being used incorrectly and what was meant was psychosomatic.
- taeric 4y agoThat is certainly an explanation. But I'm large studies like this, it seems as likely it was just an uncontrolled variable. Right?
- cjbgkagh 4y agoI’m unsure as to what you mean. There most certainly are lots of uncontrolled variables. I’d be highly surprised if this study wasn’t flawed in a number of material ways.
- taeric 4y agoI'm just saying that we don't have to jump to psychosomatic to explain why a placebo may show identical results to a treatment. There are plenty of ways that can happen.
- wesleywt 4y agoNo, the data does not show placebo effect. Reason: College grads are more likely to get vaccinated against COVID than non-grads. Leading to a reduction in symptom severity and perhaps long covid. https://healthpolicy.usc.edu/evidence-base/education-is-now-a-bigger-factor-than-race-in-desire-for-covid-19-vaccine/ https://healthpolicy.usc.edu/evidence-base/education-is-now-...
- ceeplusplus 4y agoBut there could be other causes. You are operating under the default assumption long COVID must exist. But non-grads on average are poorer, work in different environments, and have different health (i.e. obesity and diabetes) than grads. There could be any number of underlying health conditions causing brain fog and other long COVID symptoms. Obesity and diabetes are known to impact brain function and are correlated with Alzheimer's. Sedentary lifestyles and poor diet can also lead to low energy. The reason I say placebo is because any of these pre-existing conditions could be blamed on long COVID. Think about it: you don't know much about diseases, you see CNN/Fox News/MSNBC talking about long COVID. You think to yourself, hey I've got those symptoms! You blame long COVID, even though the underlying cause could have been obesity, diabetes, sedentary lifestyle, diet, etc. We know obesity is harmful yet the fat acceptance movement exists. Do you think those people are going to blame their symptoms on their obesity?
- newsclues 4y agoEducation levels tracked the acceptance of masking and vaccination, and the political divide that has emerged from Trump. I think highly educated people are often simply indoctrinated with facts and beliefs rather than trained to be intelligent and knowledgeable.
- m1sta_ 4y agoEducation is about using intelligence not gaining it. That said, in practice knowledge can be more useful than intelligence if the circumstances presented fit the available knowledge well.
- jotm 4y ago
- itsthemmrvax 4y ago
- kevingadd 4y agoI'm glad that your 4 cases of COVID did not leave you with any debilitating side effects, but treating Long COVID so flippantly when it has ruined so many lives is a pretty ghoulish thing to do. I know people who are absolutely miserable because it left them with breathing/fatigue issues or cognitive disabilities - things that are known to be real and are observable via diagnostic tests. Whataboutism like "has anyone studied Long Cold" really does no one any favors.
- deleted 4y ago[deleted]
- mlyle 4y ago> Whataboutism like "has anyone studied Long Cold" really does no one any favors. Which, you know, we've probably messed up by not studying post-viral syndromes more as we're accumulating more and more evidence that they're important to long-term health outcomes. It just took COVID to fully convince us of this importance, because it does it so visibly at such a higher rate. I believe half to 3/4 of "long covid" is anxiety and hypochondria. But that still leaves a pretty substantial "real" burden.
- monetus 4y agoThis has implications in the levels of coverage hospitals and insurance will have to extend to aftercare right? I wonder how long that will take to play out.
- mlyle 4y agoMaybe. I mean, in general, if you have a health plan you're covered for something whether it's a follow-on effect of something before or it's something new.
- bicijay 4y agoAnecdote, had covid in the end of 2020, still dont feel 100%, maybe i just grew old while sick and thats just life, but i feel like shit comparable to what i felt before it.
- daflip 4y agothis is exactly me also
- monetus 4y agoWork on lung exercises for fatigue. I have had health complications that caused the same problem as long covid seemingly causes; tiny tiny clots wreaking havoc on capillaries. I think it depends on where the viral load landed and grew, but if it was in your lungs, you would maybe need to treat it as if you have chronic bronchitis. If it was in your sinuses and mouth, messing up your senses, then I'm sorry, idk what to do. ...maybe a similar approach with anti-inflammatories, hopefully something for your nerves too. Hope you're good atm
- bicijay 4y agoYeah, had literally 100s of lab tests, all came back ok. Exercise intolerance for at least an year. But im slowly getting back on form, gym doesnt kill me anymore. Still have some random digestion issues, slightly elevated HR and just generally feeling worse than before. But ill look into lung exercises, thank you for the tip
- deleted 4y ago
- krono 4y agoFunny, I was just searching if the temperature dysregulation - randomly sweating and feeling hot or cold without a change in body temperature - might have anything to do with my covid infection two months ago (the answer seems to be: maybe, who knows!).
- kylehotchkiss 4y agoI’ve been feeling that a lot since I caught Covid a few months back too, thanks for mentioning, now I can look it up in context
- krono 4y agoIt's mentioned in most official resources that I've come across as a potential "long-covid" symptom, but I don't recall ever having seen it listed as one of the researched criteria - those seem mostly limited to just the (I suppose much more prevalent) cognitive impairments and exhaustion as in the linked article also.
- Kenji 4y ago
- kevingadd 4y agoFYI, temperature dysregulation can be a common sign of hormonal balance issues (thyroid, etc could be a factor), so if it's causing you a lot of trouble you should see if your doctor can check the levels of key hormones. IIRC testosterone and estrogen are two key ones that can be out of whack for various reasons and will cause temperature dysregulation. The test is pretty cheap and easy to do with a regular blood draw so it shouldn't be too hard to get it done if they haven't already checked it before.
- krono 4y agoCheers, I'll bring it up with the doc! Luckily he's one to take it well when his patients bring up internet-sourced thoughts or suggestions :)
- 4y ago
- nope96 4y ago34,423 subscribers: https://old.reddit.com/r/covidlonghaulers/ https://old.reddit.com/r/covidlonghaulers/ I wonder if some % of the population can be extrapolated from that
- User23 4y agoI wonder how much of the covid related long term cognitive impairment is due to the marked lockdown induced increase in alcohol consumption[1]. I’m assuming that if deaths increased other than death bad outcomes probably increased too. Edit: I see nothing in the submission showing there’s no substance abuse effect, clearly or otherwise. [1] https://www.niaaa.nih.gov/news-events/research-update/deaths-involving-alcohol-increased-during-covid-19-pandemic https://www.niaaa.nih.gov/news-events/research-update/deaths...
- yomkippur 4y agoNo the data clearly shows this is independent of substance use.
- deleted 4y ago[deleted]
- chaosbolt 4y ago>long-term COVID symptoms are much more prevalent among women, adults under 65, Hispanics and Latinos, and non–college graduates than among other demographic groups. Weird
- wongarsu 4y ago“adults under 65, Hispanics and Latinos, and non–college graduates“ all correlate with things like "people doing blue-collar work"
- Avshalom 4y agoYeah, part of the consensus as far as I know is that the best way to avoid long covid is to basically be a absolute couch potato for a month post infection. which of course, you can't do if you have to back to a physical job as soon as soon as possible.
- GuB-42 4y agoIt is the first time I hear this and it can explain things. Do you have references? One oddity I noticed is that among the people I know, the fittest and most physically active had the worst "mild" covid, which surprised me since it is well known that physical activity is good for immunity (up to a point). They tend to feel like shit for a week or two, and take weeks to months to get back to their pre-covid levels. I attributed it to some kind of bias: when you are lifting weights for instance, you can easily measure your fitness level by noting how much you are able to lift, a measure that couch potatoes don't have and therefore don't notice their weakness. But if you are saying that making efforts just after infection negatively and significantly affects recovery, that could be an explanation. Also, there are so many articles along the lines of "I used to run marathons, now, with long covid, I can barely walk". It is rarely about "normal" people (in the US, that would be couch potatoes). Again I believe these cases are selected because the before/after contrast makes a better point, but again, "don't exercise after infection" could be an explanation.
- PaulKeeble 4y ago
- spapas82 4y agoI was sick with covid for around five days 2 months ago. I had high fever, tiredness, pain on my body and coughing. After I felt better I observed that I was feeling much more tired than I usually felt. Now, after two months I feel a little better but not that much... Could this be related to my covid infection? Is there a way to improve my situation? I did a normal check up but didn't get anything abnormal...
- desperadovisa 4y ago
- _yb2s 4y agoThis is not true at all. Long covid, chronic fatigue, etc. are currently not understood, and have no known mechanisms or tests. There is nothing for doctors to identify as 'wrong' besides the subjective feeling of fatigue. This is not a matter of doctors making mistakes or not, this simply is beyond the limits of our current medical understanding. It definately sounds like the parent is suffering from long covid.
- kaczordon 4y agoOr people could just be depressed/were not working out. All this talk in the news of long covid probably causes psychosomatic symptoms.
- t0bia_s 4y agoI agreed with that. Social connections were significantly destroyed last year's. Overall fear agenda in news will not helps with mental helth either. Also vaccines harm with uknown effects.
- clcaev 4y agoAs a society, those who are able bodied are often so quick to dismiss illness that others are experiencing. A bit more humility would be a kinder way to approach the world. Just because there may be a few that abuse charity, does not negate the many more that are deserving.
- newaccount2021 4y ago
- somewhereoutth 4y ago“Good health is a crown on the head of a well person that only a sick person can see.” - Robin Sharma
- halfjoking 4y ago
- somewhereoutth 4y ago
- halfjoking 4y ago
- wincy 4y agoWow, what a great idea! Also maybe you could have been forced to meet my grandfather who languished and died in an old folks home alone because nobody was allowed to visit him. Or maybe you could have had a phone call with my wife’s old school friend before she committed suicide during the pandemic because she had mental health issues that were exacerbated by forced isolation and took her over the edge. At least they didn’t catch Covid though. Thank goodness.
- somewhereoutth 4y ago- and didn't spread it to many other vulnerable people. No mitigations are going to be entirely or even largely consequence free. It is a balance of harms. Do nothing was never an option, we should have been better at what we did do, in terms of effectiveness against COVID and also in reducing other harms. Of course, the sooner and the more completely the virus is controlled (e.g. China) the sooner normal life can resume.
- nradov 4y agoThe virus will be around forever. I would rather take my chances with the virus than live in an authoritarian shithole like China. Remember Tiananmen Square?
- jdhendrickson 4y agoVaccines are safe, have been administered and tested more than any form of medicine ever. They save lives, both from death, and crippling complications. Literally nothing you said is true, and I'm glad that misinformation spreading lunatics are being de-platformed.
- coding123 4y ago
- dustinmoris 4y ago
- hn_throwaway_99 4y agoGoing to tread lightly here, but here is the section on 4 "facts" about long COVID: > In this note, I use two survey datasets to document four facts about long COVID in the United States. First, long-term COVID symptoms are much more prevalent among women, adults under 65, Hispanics and Latinos, and non–college graduates than among other demographic groups. Second, COVID "long haulers" cite specific physical and cognitive impairments commonly associated with the condition in media and medical reporting. Third, the share of working-age adults reporting serious difficulty remembering, concentrating, or making decisions has risen steadily since the start of the pandemic. Fourth, growing shares of women and of non–college graduates report simultaneously (i) being out of the labor force due to disability and (ii) experiencing these cognitive difficulties. I'm generally interested in a good summary of what medical research tells us about long COVID. Reason being I think it's fair to hypothesize that the following facts are at least fair confounding factors: 1. Whenever economic situations become weaker, disability rates rise. This is largely because people who are "on the cusp" may find it worth it to find a job in good times, but in bad times find it's not worth it to "push through" their disability. 2. There has been so much news coverage about long COVID that it's difficult for me to tell how it compares to other long term viral syndromes. E.g. infection with Epstein Barr virus has long been implicated in a lost of long term conditions like CFS and MS. Is long COVID more common in COVID sufferers than these other syndromes are in EB infection? 3. There have been huge societal changes that have occurred in the past couple years that can make it difficult to tease out the effects of COVID alone. Not trying to discount any individual suffering from long COVID symptoms, but I think caution is warranted when trying to ascertain the effects at a society-wide level, especially when all the data for this article appears to come from self-reports.
- strogonoff 4y agoCOVID is definitely not the only case where acute form might shift into a chronic one. For a recent overview see, e.g., Unexplained post-acute infection syndromes[0]. > As of now, the true extent of PAISs remains uncertain, as there is a significant risk that a lot of cases, especially under sporadic circumstances, remain unrecognized. > The research that is available concentrates on PAISs in the context of either well-monitored acute infectious diseases, or as a follow-up of outbreaks and epidemics. [0] https://www.nature.com/articles/s41591-022-01810-6 https://www.nature.com/articles/s41591-022-01810-6
- jdkee 4y agoQ: How do you distinguish Long COVID from similar diseases like fibromyalgia? https://www.mayoclinic.org/diseases-conditions/fibromyalgia/symptoms-causes https://www.mayoclinic.org/diseases-conditions/fibromyalgia/...
- pezo1919 4y agoLong covid is mainly about microclotting and its 1000 downstream effects which can cause MANY different symptoms. Most times root cause is microclotting though, this can be shown by diagnostics as well.
- invitrom 4y agoI am unable to work for 18 months now. My covid infection was very mild and I was completely healthy before.
- pezo1919 4y agoPlease check my previous comments, there is way out for most long haulers.
- decremental 4y ago
- ETH_start 4y agoThis is NOT based on controlled studies: >>Newly available data from the Household Pulse Survey—an experimental Census Bureau product launched at the start of the pandemic—provide the first large-scale, population-level detail on the prevalence of long COVID.2 Starting with the survey's June 2022 wave, respondents who report having had a diagnosed case of COVID are asked, >>"Did you have any symptoms lasting 3 months or longer that you did not have prior to having coronavirus or COVID-19?" We have no idea if it was COVID that was responsible for these symptoms (the most common of which is anxiety) or a response to COVID, like stress, or two weeks isolation after diagnosis, or the pandemic-related restrictions on social interaction. The best evidence available suggests most cases of "long COVID" are misattribution: https://jamanetwork.com/journals/jamainternalmedicine/fullarticle/2785832 https://jamanetwork.com/journals/jamainternalmedicine/fullar...
- Arete314159 4y agoThose of us who had post-infectious disability were screaming about this since early 2020, unfortunately we were ignored in favor of "experts" who suggested we should let a virus with unknown long-term side effects rip through the country. I've seen estimates as high as 4 million Americans out of work due to being disabled with Long Covid. Add some more people who now can't work because they are taking care of disabled family members. To me, the only news story that really matters is that we're crippling 2 million+ working age Americans a year, many of them concentrated in very high need areas such as nursing. At this rate, hospitals and schools will functionally (if not officially) collapse within the next few years at most. A country where you cannot go to the ER when you're sick because there is nobody there to work the ER, and a country where there are no teachers and they've had to bring out the national guard to merely babysit students, is a failed state.
- Wowfunhappy 4y ago> unfortunately we were ignored in favor of "experts" who suggested we should let a virus with unknown long-term side effects rip through the country. What expert was suggesting that in 2020? As I recall, we shut down schools and restaurants and basically everything else we could for more than a year, except for very limited re-openings (e.g. outdoor dining, in the dead of winter) months later. We couldn't shut down everything because people need grocery stores to get food!
- spookthesunset 4y agoEven then there was never any guarantee that shutting everything down would make an impact greater than the costs. The idea that all these lockdowns did anything meaningful at all is still an open question. The fact it is an open question means 1) it never should have been done and 2) its costs have to completely outweigh any benefit. For the lockdowns and all the other nonsense you should see at least an order of magnitude difference between places that instituted them and those that didn’t. It shouldn’t require fancy statistics or expensive studies to confirm. It should be complete obvious to any reasonable person there was a very large difference.
- pezo1919 4y agoBeen into the topic since the earliest days of long covid, Apr 2020. If you have issues make sure you have dealt with possible microclotting issues, it is the main thing everyone must check/treat who had covid. As others mentioned in thread, check FLCCC's IRecover protocol and also study antifibrinogens and Gustavo Aguirre's work. He was months before anyone else from the start regarding both covid and post covid treatment. I myself manage a hungarian long covid group with almost 6K people now, started 1.5 years ago. Curating resources, translating studies, gathering good docs and protocols. List of treatments to have a look at: lysine (2000-2500mg, slowly increasing not to break microclots too fast), lumbrokinase/nattokinase/serrapeptase/bromelain, high dose B1 (even 2000-3000mg HCl form), in case of brain fog you might consider fluvoxamine, and of course there is the one which helped A LOT of long haulers I know but is censored...: www.ivmmeta.com Also diet/antihistamines might help for some and in case of low energy (if microclots are surely gone, if not I'd focus on it first) then high dose flush niacin. Proved many times. It is so absurd they can still censor it and that many docs blindly following orders.