3 ms·

This is great news for a few reasons: 1) Clear molecular signals of pathology mean that minimizers' claims that longcovid is just psychosomatic or malingering

by xhonk 3y ago

This is great news for a few reasons: 1) Clear molecular signals of pathology mean that minimizers' claims that longcovid is just psychosomatic or malingering are unsupported. 2) Seeing high antibody titers against COVID & EBV adds weight to the viral persistence and reactivation hypothesis: longcovid may be due, in part, to ongoing low-level infection elsewhere in the body along with reactivation of other viruses like EBV or HPV. 3) Autoantibodies were found again, but not significantly different than those seen in non-longcovid control groups, which is interesting because it had been suggested that longcovid may induce immune quality control dysfunction and increase overall autoimmune reactivity. Hopefully these results can help guide better study design and management for longcovid trials.

Animats 3y ago
> Clear molecular signals of pathology mean that minimizers' claims that long covid is just psychosomatic or malingering are unsupported. Yes. That's clear now. The UK has an organized program to figure out what's going on with long COVID.[1] It's been known for a year or two now, from MRI scans, that long COVID is associated with brain and lung inflammation. But the underlying mechanism is not yet known. This UK longitudinal study [2] is especially useful. "Three in five people with long COVID have impairment in at least one organ (seen in MRI scans) and one in four have impairment in two or more organs, in some cases without symptoms." This has been going on long enough now that the longitudinal studies, where the same patients are re-tested, are starting to produce results. [1] https://www.gov.uk/government/news/new-research-into-treatment-and-diagnosis-of-long-covid https://www.gov.uk/government/news/new-research-into-treatme... [2] https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/10.1177/01410768231154703 https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/10.1177/01410768231154703
tremon 3y ago
Autoantibodies were found again Were the antibodies detected, or was their activity detected? Because if it's just about the presence of autoantibodies, the simple explanation may be that aab quantities may not significantly differ, but their activity/activation might.
- xhonk 3y ago
  Antibodies were detected, not their activity. Here's the assay used: https://www.cell.com/cell-reports-methods/pdf/S2667-2375(22)00024-8.pdf https://www.cell.com/cell-reports-methods/pdf/S2667-2375(22)... Measuring antibody activity is a lot harder than measuring antibodies, just being able to assess antibody targets in a high-throughput manner is a huge and very recent step forward.

by xhonk 3y ago

Animats 3y ago

> Clear molecular signals of pathology mean that minimizers' claims that long covid is just psychosomatic or malingering are unsupported. Yes. That's clear now. The UK has an organized program to figure out what's going on with long COVID.[1] It's been known for a year or two now, from MRI scans, that long COVID is associated with brain and lung inflammation. But the underlying mechanism is not yet known. This UK longitudinal study [2] is especially useful. "Three in five people with long COVID have impairment in at least one organ (seen in MRI scans) and one in four have impairment in two or more organs, in some cases without symptoms." This has been going on long enough now that the longitudinal studies, where the same patients are re-tested, are starting to produce results. [1] https://www.gov.uk/government/news/new-research-into-treatment-and-diagnosis-of-long-covid https://www.gov.uk/government/news/new-research-into-treatme... [2] https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/10.1177/01410768231154703 https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/10.1177/01410768231154703

tremon 3y ago

Autoantibodies were found again Were the antibodies detected, or was their activity detected? Because if it's just about the presence of autoantibodies, the simple explanation may be that aab quantities may not significantly differ, but their activity/activation might.

xhonk 3y ago
Antibodies were detected, not their activity. Here's the assay used: https://www.cell.com/cell-reports-methods/pdf/S2667-2375(22)00024-8.pdf https://www.cell.com/cell-reports-methods/pdf/S2667-2375(22)... Measuring antibody activity is a lot harder than measuring antibodies, just being able to assess antibody targets in a high-throughput manner is a huge and very recent step forward.