LSU Pennington Biomedical Research Center, along with LSU Health New Orleans and Tulane Health Sciences will take part in a National Institutes of Health study on the impacts of long COVID. Pennington, Lead Investigator John Kirwan said they will compare blood samples of a control group to those who have symptoms of long COVID.
“And we hope as a result of that, be able to identify what the causes are and how we could potentially treat this condition,” said Kirwan.
As many as 30% of COVID patients experience symptoms that last at least a month or longer after COVID. Symptoms like fatigue, loss of smell and/or taste, shortness of breath, brain fog, and fibromyalgia pain.
Kirwan said at first, they thought the symptoms were possibly psychosomatic or merely coincidence.
“But as the cases accumulated it became evident that this was something new and it was related to having COVID,” said Kirwan.
Another long COVID symptom Kirwan said they are seeing patients develop is myocarditis, which is an inflammation of the heart. He said COVID causes the body to overact with an inflammatory response to fight off the virus, some more than others.
“And we’re learning and hopefully through this particular study, it’s called The Recover Study, we will be able to figure out what it actually is, to begin with, and after that how we could potentially treat it,” said Kirwan.
The study will take place over four years.
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