People with Long COVID Have a Higher Risk of Early Death and Serious Disease, Study Finds

In a new study published in JAMA Health Forum, people with Long COVID had an increased risk of dying during the study period and developing serious health problems compared to people who never had COVID-19. Long COVID is an umbrella term for health issues that emerge during or after a case of COVID-19 and last weeks, months, or longer. Some symptoms—like fatigue, cognitive dysfunction, and chronic pain—affect patients’ daily lives, while others—like organ damage—linger beneath the surface, potentially causing serious illness later on. The new study looks at the latter. [time-brightcove not-tgx=”true”] The researchers drew from a database that includes health-record data for millions of people in the U.S. covered by 14 commercial insurance plans. Using those records, they examined a group of about 13,500 U.S. adults who were diagnosed with COVID-19 from April to July 2020 and went on to develop Long COVID. Almost 27,000 adults who had no COVID-19 diagnosis during the study period but were similarly matched in terms of demographics and pre-pandemic health status served as a control group. (The rate of preexisting conditions was fairly high among both groups, the authors note, but they accounted for overall health in their analysis.) In the year after their COVID-19 diagnoses, people with Long COVID were significantly more likely to seek care for health problems including irregular heartbeats, blood clots, strokes, heart disease, heart f...
Source: TIME: Health - Category: Consumer Health News Authors: Tags: Uncategorized COVID-19 healthscienceclimate Source Type: news