How the coronavirus affects the whole body

Coronavirus not only damages the lungs, but also the kidneys, liver, heart, brain, nervous system, skin, and gastrointestinal tract, doctors said Friday in a review of a report on Covid-19 patients.

A team at Columbia University Irving Medical Center in New York City-one of the hospitals flooded with patients in the spring-experienced their own experience and collected reports from other medical teams around the world.

Their comprehensive figure shows that the coronavirus attacks almost every major system in the human body, causing direct damage to organs, causing blood to clot, the heart losing a healthy rhythm, and the kidneys draining blood and protein. And shows that the skin gushes with a rash. It causes typical respiratory symptoms such as coughing and fever, as well as headache, dizziness, myalgia, stomachache and other symptoms.

“Physicians need to think of COVID-19 as a multi-system disorder,” said Aakriti Gupta, a Colombian cardiologist who worked on the review, said in a statement. “There’s a lot of news about coagulation, but we understand that a significant proportion of these patients have kidney, heart, and brain damage, and doctors need to treat these conditions along with respiratory diseases. It’s also important.”

Much of the virus damage appears to be due to its affinity for the receptor, the entry and exit of molecules into a cell called ACE2. The cells that line blood vessels, kidneys, liver ducts, pancreas, intestines, and airways are all covered with the ACE2 receptor, which a virus can use to infect cells, a team in Colombia reviewed and published. Journal Nature Medicine.

“These findings suggest that damage to multiple organs may be caused, at least in part, by direct viral tissue damage,” the team wrote.

Coronavirus infection also activates the immune system. Part of that response involves the production of inflammatory proteins called cytokines. This inflammation can damage cells and organs, and the so-called cytokine storm is one of the causes of serious symptoms.

“The virus is abnormal, it’s hard not to step back and be impressed by how many symptoms are present in the human body,” said reviewing cardiologist Dr. Mahesh Madavant in a statement.

The effects of blood coagulation appear to be triggered by several different mechanisms. It is a direct damage to the cells lining the blood vessels and interference with various coagulation mechanisms of the blood itself. The low blood oxygen levels caused by pneumonia can help blood clots, the researchers say.

These blood clots can cause strokes, heart attacks, and can lodge in the lungs and legs. They block the kidneys and interfere with the dialysis treatment needed for the most ill patients.

Damage to the pancreas can exacerbate diabetes, and people with diabetes have been shown to be at the highest risk of serious morbidity and mortality from coronaviruses.

The virus can directly damage the brain, but some neurological effects probably result from treatment. “COVID-19 patients can be intubated for a few weeks, a quarter need at least 30 days of ventilation,” Gupta said.

“These are very long-term intubations and patients require a lot of sedation. “ICU delirium” is a well-known condition before COVID, where hallucinations are not viral effects and long-term sedation It may be an impact. “

The virus affects the immune system and depletes the T cells that the body normally deploys to fight off viral infections. “Lymphopenia is a marker of cell-mediated immune disorders and is the primary test result reported in 67-90% of patients with COVID-19,” the researchers write.

When a coronavirus patient came to the hospital, doctors needed to treat all these effects, the Colombian team said.

I have good news.

“Gastrointestinal symptoms may be associated with longer disease duration, but not with increased mortality,” the researchers wrote. Many skin effects, such as a rash and swollen “Covid toes” with a purplish color, are naturally resolved.