Order of developing chronic conditions before COVID-19 may influence risk of long Covid: Study

New Delhi, Nov 5 (PTI) The order in which one developed chronic conditions before getting infected with COVID-19 can influence their risk of long Covid, symptoms that persist despite recovery, according to a new study.

Researchers analysed clinical and genetic information of over 8,300 people living in Spain's Catalonia, collected over 15 years as part of the 'Genomes for Life' project. Disease trajectories were reconstructed from electronic health records of 2010-2019.

"It is not enough to know which diseases a person has. The order in which they appear can significantly influence risk (of long Covid), especially among women," said first author Natalia Blay from the Germans Trias i Pujol Research Institute in Spain.

Findings published in the journal BMC Medicine show that of the total 162 trajectories of chronic conditions analysed prior to COVID-19, 38 were associated with a significantly higher risk of long Covid, which most often involved mental health disorders, neurological, respiratory and metabolic or digestive diseases.

Obesity followed by a dysfunction of the knee joint emerged as a new trajectory, especially in women, which influenced the risk of long Covid, the authors said.

The analysis also revealed that some of the disease trajectories, such as co-existing neurological and mental health conditions, could increase the risk of long Covid, regardless of the severity of the initial infection, which previous studies have shown to be among the main contributing factors.

This indicates that not everything can be explained by the type or intensity of acute Covid, the researchers said.

Co-existing physical conditions were also found to contribute to differences in long Covid profiles observed in the study group.

Links noted between migraine (a neurological disorder) and digestive symptoms indicate that the gut-brain axis could be involved in the persistence of symptoms beyond recovery from initial COVID-19 infection, the team said.

Further, chronic pain and reduced physical activity due to musculoskeletal disorders, such as dysfunction of the knee joint, may influence cardiovascular and respiratory symptom severity, the study found.

"This work demonstrates that long Covid results from a prior health trajectory rather than a single factor," said lead researcher Rafael de Cid, director of 'Genomes for Life' project at the Germans Trias i Pujol Research Institute.

The study also highlights how data collected over a long term can allow the identification of patterns in population health that may help predict other diseases and support a more preventive and personalised public health approach, said de Cid. PTI KRS KRS KSS KSS