How to COVID fatigue linked to malfunctioning mitochondria

Globally, at least 65 million people have long COVID.

Post-exertional malaise, cognitive impairment, brain fog, sleep issues, and weariness are the most prevalent symptoms of prolonged COVID-19 infection, and they can significantly affect an individual's quality of life.

Why some persons develop long-term COVID-19 and associated symptoms while others do not is still a mystery to researchers.

Researchers from the Amsterdam University Medical Center have found a physiologic reason for the exhaustion that long-term COVID patients experience.

A minimum of 65 million individuals worldwide suffer from extended COVID-19, a disorder in which COVID-19 symptoms persist for several months following the onset of symptoms.

 

The most typical signs of prolonged COVID include exhaustion, lightheadedness, difficulty moving around, difficulty sleeping, cognitive decline, and mental fog or incapacity.

 

 These kinds of chronic ailments can significantly affect an individual's life. According to a June 2023 survey, over half of those with extended COVID-19 reported that the symptoms had a significant negative influence on their personal, professional, and social lives, with weariness being the primary issue.

 

The reason why some persons acquire long-term COVID-19 symptoms while others do not remains a mystery to scientists.

 

With the recent publication of their new study in the journal Nature CommunicationsTrusted Source, researchers from the Amsterdam University Medical Center are now contributing to the answers by determining the physical source of the exhaustion that long-term COVID patients suffer.

 Long-term COVID fatigue's effects on living quality

The impact that long-term COVID-19 infection has on people's lives led Prof. Michèle van Vugt, an internal medicine professor at the Amsterdam University Medical Center and co-lead author of this study, to tell Medical News Today that she and her colleagues decided to look for a physical cause of the fatigue that these individuals experience.

 

According to Prof. van Vugt, "those long-term COVID patients used to be like you and me totally integrated [into] society with a job, social life, and private life." Some of them were so exhausted from their COVID infection that nothing remained. And this occurred in far too many patients for just a psychiatric explanation—not just in one.

 

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