Having a history of psychological distress can lead to long Covid, study says

CNN
—

A recent study found that if you suffer from common psychiatric problems such as anxiety and depression, your risk of developing long-term Covid-19 may increase by up to 50%.

Symptoms of illness include trouble breathing, brain fog, chronic coughing, changes in taste and smell, extreme fatigue, difficulty performing everyday functions, and trouble sleeping. .

self-aware person As someone who has or feels anxious, depressed, or lonely Study found people who were highly stressed or frequently worried about coronavirus were more likely to experience Covid-19 longer Published in JAMA Psychiatry this month.

“We found that participants who had two or more types of psychological distress prior to infection had a 50% higher risk of having Covid longer,” said a research fellow in the Department of Nutrition at Harvard TH Chan Public School, part of the study. Co-author Siwen Wang, Ph.D. Boston Health.

about 40 million adults Anxiety disorders affect people 18 and older in the United States 21 million have major depression, according to national statistics. Experts say many mental health conditions overlap and are often diagnosed at the same time: more than a fifth of adults in the US (22%) and UK (23%) have often or always feel lonelysaid the Kaiser Family Foundation study.

“Higher levels of mental distress before Covid infection increased the risk of longer Covid by 50%,” Wang said. I reported my symptoms.”

Some may use the results of this study to support the hypothesis of post-Covid illness. Dr. Wesley Erie, professor of medicine and critical care at Vanderbilt University Medical Center in Nashville, Tennessee, said it was a psychosomatic disorder that was widely believed early in the pandemic. He was not involved in research.

Instead, the study’s message should be that people with pre-existing psychological distress are on the verge of a long Covid “disaster,” according to Vanderbilt’s severe illness, brain dysfunction. and Ely, co-director of the Survivorship Center.

“Imagine 10 people are racing and 5 have a head start,” says Ely. “They are people who have already had mental health issues. They are nearing the unfortunate finish line of lengthening Covid.”

The idea that mental distress can negatively affect the body is nothing new.It’s also a two-way lane. Having a chronic illness is strongly associated with the development of depression and other mental disorders.

In common non-communicable diseases such as heart disease, “depression/anxiety/emotional distress appears to play a role,” said Dr. Psychiatry, a professor in the Department of Psychiatry and Behavioral Sciences at Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine in Baltimore. Dr. Joseph Bienvenu said: ,on mail.he I wasn’t involved in the research.

People with major depression may develop blood pressure problems, heart attack. chronic depression, stress and anxiety lead to insomniaWhen lack of quality sleep It is a major cause of the development of obesity, type 2 diabetes and other diseases.

Emotional distress has also been shown to weaken the immune system, said study co-author Dr. Angela Roberts is an Associate Professor of Pulmonary and Critical Care Medicine at Stanford University, California.

“Your brain and your immune system are very closely interconnected,” said Roberts. Studies show it doesn’t work.”

To conduct the new study, researchers enrolled approximately 55,000 people with no history of Covid-19 in three primary longitudinal studies. Health Research for Nurses II, Nurse Health Study 3 and the Growth research todayParticipants in these studies tended to be predominantly female and Caucasian, which may limit the extent to which the results can be generalized to wider populations.

Participants were asked about their mental health in April 2020. Early pandemic. They continued to complete the mental health survey monthly for six months, then quarterly. Narrowed down.

“This study is particularly impressive in that participants’ baseline characteristics were assessed independently of time from later Covid symptoms,” said Johns Hopkins’ I said welcome.

Compared with those without emotional distress, those with depression and loneliness were 1.32 times more likely to develop long-term symptoms of Covid. The study found that people — mostly people of color, women, and people with asthma — were 1.37 times more likely to develop Covid.

Anxiety was associated with greater risk, 1.42 times more likely, but those with higher levels of stress were nearly 50% more likely to develop post-Covid symptoms, study found. Wang, co-author of

Psychological distress and long-term association with Covid remain important, Even after researchers controlled for demographics, weight, smoking status, and history of asthma, cancer, diabetes, hypertension or cholesterol.

In addition, all types of mental distress, except loneliness, were associated with an increased risk of being unable to complete activities of daily living due to prolonged extended periods of time. COVID symptoms.

Many long-term infections with COVID-19 are mild and clear up within months, but some patients continue to suffer for long periods of time. Aaron Friedberg, Ph.D., a clinical assistant professor of internal medicine working on a post-corona recovery program at Ohio State University’s Wexner Medical Center in Columbus, says some people have not regained their quality of life for more than two years after the pandemic. . .

“They can’t think, they can’t breathe. We have one person who is so sick that they basically can’t get out of bed,” says Friedberg. told CNN in an earlier interview“Recently, I saw someone who was still out of work two years later due to COVID-19 symptoms.”