In the U.S. about 15 million individuals live with long Covid, according to Department of Health & Human Services. For a long time, the scientific community has struggled to find out why some individuals who got infected with Covid-19 recovered fully while others developed lingering symptoms that came to be described as long Covid. Now a new study has established that the key driver among people with long Covid could be chronic inflammation and this opens new pathways to treating the condition.
The study, conducted by a team at Beth Israel Medical Center and Harvard University analyzed blood samples taken from 140 individuals who never suffered from Covid, those who got infected and fully recovered, and those who got the infection and developed long Covid.
The research team used a multi-omic approach to analyze those blood samples. This involved testing for viral markers, plasma proteins, gene expression, immune responses and other advanced tests. These tests allowed the researchers to understand the inflammatory and immune system responses of the individuals studied. The analysis covered the initial three months after one has been infected with Covid and then up to half a year after the infection.
The results uncovered distinct differences in certain signaling pathways that could help in explaining why some people ended up with long Covid while others didn’t develop this chronic condition.
The scientists found that the people who had high levels of inflammation markers in their immune system stood the highest chance of developing long Covid after they were infected by the SARS-CoV-2 virus. The research identified important signaling pathways that merit further study as targets for teams developing treatments to address long Covid.
This study is important because initial attempts to treat long Covid focused on administering therapeutics aimed at dealing with lingering viral particles in the body. However, this approach hasn’t yielded significant results, suggesting that the problem may lie elsewhere. Looking into addressing immune system depletion and inflammatory pathways could offer better results since this new study highlights the role that these mechanisms play in triggering the different long Covid symptoms, such as brain fog, chronic fatigue, cognitive decline and intolerance to exercise, among others.
The research is yet another reminder of the long term effects of chronic inflammation in the body. For companies like Soligenix Inc. (NASDAQ: SNGX) that are investing resources in developing therapies indicated for chronic inflammation, this new understanding opens potential indications for which their drugs under development could be put to use once commercialized.
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