COVID-19 can cause havoc on your body. So will it cause health problems decades into the future?

Time and research have shown that the virus has considerable knack for causing havoc in the human body under the right conditions. So what does this mean for the long-term health of millions of infected people? It’s months, years, and even decades away.

Matthew Miller, an associate professor at the Center for Immunology Research at McMaster University in Hamilton, said:

“And there are” unknown “unknown things, such as what will happen in 30 or 50 years. “

Diabetes-related infectious diseases, neurological problems

The ability of SARS-CoV-2 to spread throughout the body is primarily related to its surface peplomer. Peplomers, like keys, bind to ACE2, a protein on the surface of various types of human cells.

That is, the virus can reach far beyond the respiratory tract and cause inflammation wherever it spreads.

“This virus, even in the acute phase, affects areas where central organs such as the brain and heart, pancreas, and other viral infections cause long-term inflammatory changes and cause chronic inflammation. Has already been shown. Illness. ” Public health, health care systems, and social policy are influencing the pillars of the co-leader of CoVaRR-Net, a team of Canadian researchers united during the pandemic.

“I wouldn’t be surprised if the number of chronic diseases caused by COVID increases in the future.”

For example, SARS-CoV-2 infection is associated with the development of diabetes in childhood.

January Report from the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention Young people under the age of 18 are more likely to be diagnosed with new diabetes more than a month after infection than young people not infected with COVID-19, as compared to pre-pandemic respiratory infections. it was done.

“These findings are consistent with previous studies showing an association between SARS-CoV-2 infection and diabetes in adults,” the report continued.

In other studies, even mild cases of COVID-19 have been associated with long-term neurological symptoms.

One of the recent US studiesAlthough not yet peer-reviewed, it included analysis of autopsy results from 9 patients and their effects on laboratory mice intentionally infected with SARS-CoV-2.

In an interview with CBC, Michelle Monje, a senior researcher at Stanford University in California, said, “The relatively mild and acute course of SARS-CoV-2 in this mouse model induces neuroinflammation. I found that I would do it. ” news.

The team believes that it may be behind the “brain fog” that some people describe after a COVID-19 attack, as well as those who experience it after receiving chemotherapy treatment.

Prolonged symptoms can be “debilitating”

The sensation of fog in the brain after infection, along with other protracted effects, is often referred to as long COVID. This is a well-documented, but not yet fully understood phenomenon.

Dr. Angela Cheung, Senior Scientist and Clinician at the University Health Network in Toronto, has spent much of her long pandemic with COVID patients as a co-principal investigator in Canada’s COVID-19 prospective cohort study. According to her, the patient’s symptoms are everywhere on the map, from extreme fatigue to palpitations and sleep disorders.

“Some people have very little, but they say,’Oh, my scent hasn’t completely returned,'” she said. “But some people have very debilitating symptoms in that they can’t do things, they have to lie in bed all day and they keep their jobs. can not.”

Miller, a researcher at McMaster University, said he was most concerned about this type of long-term health effect that occurs shortly after infection and appears to last “or perhaps for a lifetime” for long periods of time. Stated.

“I wouldn’t be particularly worried, but after 10 or 20 years, tons of people could experience some of the major chronic illnesses associated with SARS-CoV-2 infection,” he said. Said.

However, in the context of a pandemic, even rare illnesses can put a heavy burden on the healthcare system simply because the number of people infected at one time is very high.

Lessons from the influence of the 1918 pandemic

This is a lesson from the 1918 flu epidemic, with more than 500 million people (one-third of the world’s population at the time) sick and a short-term play on global health, including tens of millions of deaths. Influenza.

The global health crisis was also associated with a milder impact on the health of later survivors. One Swedish studyFor example, we have found that prenatal exposure to the 1918 influenza strain in the womb can increase the incidence of adult health problems and hospitalization.

Later effects are usually associated with genetic variation that can make someone more susceptible to certain illnesses, Miller said.

“Infectious diseases that are compounded on top of that genetic predisposition may be sufficient to tilt the scale, so one experiences an illness that one might not have otherwise experienced,” he said.

See | Doctors are striving to resolve long COVIDs as patients are struggling to recover.

Doctors search to resolve long COVIDs as patients fight to recover

Approximately two years after the COVID-19 pandemic, doctors and health professionals are looking for long-term causes and cures for COVID, but patients are simply fighting for recovery. 6:14

Miller also said that one aspect of this virus should be somewhat reassuring compared to many other viruses. Our body seems to be clearing it.

Unlike HIV, the herpes virus and varicella-zoster virus (a virus known to cause chickenpox in children and later on), SARS-CoV-2, is like a timed bomb indefinitely. It does not appear to adhere, reducing the risk of serious health. The result of developing in decades.

Still, given all the unknowns about this coronavirus and how long it has been since it began to spread to humans, Miller remains a big question about how the infection will affect people in the future. He said he was.

“The majority of people infected with COVID survive a mild infection,” he said. “But it does not explain what may happen in the future as a result of those infections.”