Lates BH21 Aug 2021 13:53
https://www.bhf.org.uk/informationsupport/heart-matters-magazine/news/coronavirus-and-your-health/long-covid/what-do-we-know-about-long-covid?utm_campaign=1895628_HeartMatters_enewsletter_NonHCP_Aug2021_2&utm_medium=email&utm_source=British%20Heart%20Foundation%20%28BHF%29%20&mi_u=8-18884270#Heading11
Do blood clots cause long Covid symptoms?
New evidence from blood tests of people with long Covid suggests that symptoms such as reduced fitness and fatigue may be caused by blood clots. Researchers studied 50 people with long Covid symptoms and found that, compared to healthy people in a ‘control group’, they had higher levels of substances involved in blood clotting. The people who had needed treatment in hospital for their initial Covid illness had higher levels of these substances (known as markers). But people who’d had less severe Covid still had them at higher levels than the healthy control group.
Some research has suggested that long Covid could be caused by inflammation (which results from your immune system reacting to a threat, such as a virus), but in this study, signs of clotting remained at high levels in the blood after substances related to inflammation had returned to normal levels. Clotting is part of your body’s normal response to injury, in order to stop bleeding, but when it happens too much, it can have harmful effects.
The study also found evidence that in people with long Covid, the cells that line the walls of blood vessels were releasing substances that are involved in blood clotting. The researchers said these findings suggested that blood clots, for example in the lungs, could be causing the long Covid symptoms people in the study were experiencing.
The study’s lead author, Dr Helen Fogarty, said: “Because clotting markers were elevated while inflammation markers had returned to normal, our results suggest that the clotting system may be involved in the root cause of long Covid syndrome.”
“Understanding the root cause of a disease is the first step toward developing effective treatments,” said Professor James O’Donnell, Director of the Irish Centre for Vascular Biology, RCSI (an international university in Dublin), which helped fund the research.
It's important to understand that this is a small study, and more research is needed to confirm these results.
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