The virus tricks the body into attacking the brain. Common Heartburn Drugs Associated With Coronavirus Risk

(Reuters)-The following is a brief summary of some of the latest scientific research on the new coronavirus and efforts to find cures and vaccines for the virus-caused disease COVID-19.

Coronavirus tricks the body into attacking the brain

Numerous neurological problems such as tremor, seizures, and disturbances of consciousness are associated with severe COVID-19, and a small German study identified a mechanism by which the virus appeared to trick the body into attacking the brain. May be revealed. Researchers have seen these symptoms without finding coronavirus in the cerebrospinal fluid that circulates in the brain and spinal cord. Researchers report on medRxiv on Monday prior to peer review, and it appears that the patient’s immune system falsely produces what is known as an autoantibody that targets a person’s own tissues or organs. .. “Surprisingly, all 11 patients investigated in this study had potent autoantibodies that target the brain, but are not normally found in the cerebrospinal fluid of healthy people.” The lack of other explanations for the biology suggests that these autoantibodies are responsible, she added. Researchers are studying how coronaviruses induce autoantibody production, whether other organs are similarly attacked by the immune system, and whether this also occurs during patient recovery. Said Franke. She noted that after the pandemic of the influenza virus in 1918, about one million patients remained neurologically ill. ()

Heartburn drugs are at high risk of coronavirus

Widely used heartburn medications that are associated with many complications, such as increased risk of kidney disease and dementia from long-term use, may also be associated with increased risk of COVID-19 Researchers have discovered. A class of drugs known as proton pump inhibitors (PPIs), including omeprazole (Prilosec), lansoprazole (Prevacid), pantoprazole (Protonix), and esomeprazole (Nexium), prevents the stomach from making too much acid. Works with. Researchers surveyed more than 53,000 people, including nearly 4,000 who were positive for the COVID-19 test. Studies show that they are more than twice as likely to be infected with coronavirus as people taking PPI once a day, and more than three times more likely to take it twice daily than people not taking the drug. Discovered at High Risk Published by the American Journal of Gastroenterology on Tuesday, led by Dr. Brennan Spiegel of Cedars Sinai Medical Center in Los Angeles. Those taking a heartburn drug called the histamine-2 receptor antagonist (H2RA) were not at increased risk, according to the researchers. This study only shows a correlation and does not prove that PPI caused an increase in coronavirus infection. “We need more research to find out the relationship between PPI and COVID-19,” says the Spiegel team. ()

Organ inflammation is not always associated with lethal COVID-19 viral load

In a lethal case of COVID-19, the body location with the most inflammation and organ damage is not necessarily the viral load or the most viral load, according to small studies. Autopsy of 11 patients who died of COVID-19 showed high levels of virus in some tissues, such as intestine, liver and kidney, but did not cause inflammation but inconsistent virus levels , Or patchy tissue, especially the lungs, severe inflammation. The fact that virus levels do not correlate with organ damage in these fatal cases means that some tissues are more resistant to the virus than others, and “may not be caused by the virus alone” Therefore, it suggests that treatments that reduce lung inflammation may be particularly effective at “tissue damage,” said David Doward, researcher at the Center for Inflammation Research at the University of Edinburgh, told Reuters. Dorward and colleagues posted a research report on medRxiv prior to peer review. ()

Obesity increases the risk of respiratory failure for COVID-19

The prevalence of obesity may explain, at least in part, the widespread need for invasive ventilator use in US coronavirus patients with an obesity rate of approximately 40%, according to researchers in New York City. Hmm. They studied 1,687 adults hospitalized at COVID-19, of whom one in three were obese. After considering other health risk factors, obesity alone did not increase the risk of death in the hospital, but it did increase the risk of respiratory failure. The findings “support the need to consider the prevalence of community-specific obesity when planning a community’s response to COVID-19,” the research team wrote Monday in the Annals of Internal Medicine. ()

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