People with long covid also suffer from organ damage study finds

If you've been battling long Covid then it's likely you've also suffered some form of organ damage according to a February 2023 study published in the Journal of the Royal Society of Medicine that found the complicated disease could be doing a lot more harm to its victims than we realized. 

Researchers from a variety of institutions in Britain came together to study 536 long Covid patients who reported fatigue, breathlessness, and cognitive dysfunction over the course of one year.

Patients were examined six months into the study and 62% showed signs of organ impairment according to the study published in the Journal of the Royal Society for Medicine. 

At the twelve-month mark, patients were examined again and it was discovered that a staggering 59% still showed signs of organ impairment.

The study’s authors also pointed out that organ damage was present even in cases where the patient had not been severely affected by the virus according to a statement written by the Royal Society of Medicine and posted on their website.

“Organ impairment persisted in 59% of 331 individuals followed up at 1 year post COVID-19, with implications for symptoms, quality of life and longer-term health, signaling the need for prevention and integrated care of long COVID,” the researchers wrote in their conclusion. 

Professor Amitava Banerjee was one of several members that made up the study’s research team and he noted a number of common threads found among long Covid patients who suffered organ damage. 

“Symptoms were common at six and twelve months and associated with female gender, younger age, and single organ impairment,” Banerjee said. 

“Several studies confirm the persistence of symptoms in individuals with long COVID up to one year,” Banerjee continued. 

“We now add that three in five people with long COVID have impairment in at least one organ, and one in four have impairment in two or more organs, in some cases without symptoms,” Banerjee added in reference to the study he worked on. 

Banerjee and his colleagues were not able to explain why a majority of long Covid patients still suffered organ damage after one year and said more research was needed to under the underlying pathophysiology of long Covid organ impairment. 

“Continued research in multi-system assessment and pharmacotherapy for those reporting ongoing fatigue, breathlessness, and cognitive problems is required to address long COVID burden, in parallel with mechanistic studies to understand pathophysiology,” the study’s authors wrote in their conclusion. 

Long Covid was first identified shortly after the beginning of the pandemic, but not all doctors have been able to agree on what it is according to Fortune’s Erin Prater.  

“Even the definition of the condition varies depending on whom you talk to, Prater wrote, “though it’s generally considered to consist of new symptoms that start during a Covid infection or appear after one, and persist for weeks or months.”

Partner said that long Covid can have upwards of 200 symptoms but it is generally recognized as a “chronic-fatigue-syndrome-like condition.”

The World Health Organization (WHO) estimated that roughly 10-20% of people who get sick will go on to develop some form of long Covid. 

As of January 2023, a study published in Nature Reviews Biology found that roughly 65 million people suffer from long Covid worldwide.