A team of experts found that low iron levels in the human body after infection with “Covid-19” may be a major cause of suffering from “long Covid.”
Symptoms of "long Covid" include: fatigue, shortness of breath, muscle pain, and problems with memory and concentration, and may persist for a long time after recovery from the initial "Covid" infection.
A team led by the University of Cambridge began recruiting individuals who had tested positive for the coronavirus shortly after the pandemic began.
Over the course of a year, participants provided blood samples showing that a large number of them were experiencing persistent symptoms of the disease.
The researchers then focused their analysis on 214 individuals, about half of whom reported symptoms of “long Covid” after a period ranging from 3 to 10 months after the initial infection.
They discovered that persistent inflammation and low blood iron levels appeared two weeks after infection in individuals who reported “long Covid” several months later, regardless of age, gender, or severity of infection.
Dr Amy Hanson, who worked on the study while at the University of Cambridge and is now at the University of Bristol, said: “Iron levels fall, and the body’s ability to regulate them deteriorates, early in SARS-CoV-2 infection (responsible for Covid disease). Recovery took a very long time, especially for people who reported having “long Covid” months later.
Professor Hal Drexsmith, co-author from the University of Oxford, said iron dysregulation is a normal response to infection.
He added: “When the body gets an infection, it responds by removing iron from the bloodstream. This protects us from deadly bacteria that feed on the iron in the bloodstream and grow rapidly. It is an evolutionary response that redistributes iron in the body. However, if this continues for a while For a long time, there will be less iron in the red blood cells, and thus the efficiency of transporting oxygen through the body will decrease, which affects the metabolism and energy production process.”
The findings, published in the journal Nature Immunology, may help explain why symptoms such as fatigue and exercise intolerance are common in long Covid patients.