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New kidney problems linked to 'long COVID'

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Nancy Lapid, Reuters

<p>The following is a summary of some recent studies on COVID-19. They include research that warrants further study to corroborate the findings and that have yet to be certified by peer review.</p><div><strong>&#x27;Long COVID&#x27; tied to higher kidney risks</strong></div><p>COVID-19 symptoms that persist long after infection, known as &quot;long COVID&quot;, has been tied to a higher risk for new kidney problems, according to a new study. </p><p>Analyzing data on more than 1.7 million US veterans, including nearly 90,000 COVID-19 survivors with symptoms lasting at least 30 days, researchers found the &quot;long haulers&quot; were at higher risk for new kidney problems compared to people who had not been infected with the coronavirus. </p><p>This was true even when survivors had not been hospitalized, although declines in kidney function were &quot;more profound&quot; with more severe infection, they reported on Wednesday in the Journal of the American Society of Nephrology. </p><p>Roughly 5% of the Long COVID group developed at least a 30% drop in a critical measure of kidney function known as the estimated glomerular filtration rate, or eGFR. </p><p>Overall, people with long COVID were 25% more likely than uninfected people to develop a 30% decline in eGFR, with higher risks in survivors of more severe disease. </p><p>While kidney function often declines with age, the damage in these patients &quot;was in excess&quot; of what happens with normal aging, study coauthor Dr. Ziyad Al-Aly, of Washington University in St. Louis, said in a statement. &quot;Our findings emphasize the critical importance of paying attention to kidney function and disease in caring for patients who have had COVID-19,&quot; he said.</p><div><strong>Loss of smell may be followed by smell distortions</strong></div><p>Many people who lose their sense of smell due to COVID-19 eventually regain it, but some survivors later report smell distortions and unexplained smells, a new study found. </p><p>Researchers analyzed survey responses from 1,468 individuals who had been diagnosed with COVID-19 between April and September 2020 and had suffered loss of smell and taste at the start of their illness. Early on, about 10% also reported smell distortions, or parosmia, and unexplained smells, known as phantosmia. </p><p>At an average of six to seven months after becoming ill and first reporting loss of smell, roughly 60% of women and 48% of men had regained less than 80% of their pre-illness smell ability, and rates of smell distortions and imaginary smells had increased, the researchers reported on Tuesday on medRxiv ahead of peer review. </p><p>Roughly 47% reported parosmia, saying, for example, &quot;some things now smell like chemicals.&quot; About 25% reported phantosmia. &quot;Sometimes I can smell burning but no one else around me can,&quot; one respondent reported. Persistent smell problems were seen more often in survivors with more symptoms overall, &quot;suggesting it may be a key marker of long-COVID,&quot; the authors said.</p><div><strong>Vaccines induce antibodies despite cancer, immunocompromise</strong></div><p>The mRNA COVID-19 vaccines trigger protective immune responses in most cancer patients with solid tumors and in many people taking immunosuppressive medications, two small studies suggest. </p><p>In Israel, researchers found that six months after the second dose of the vaccine from Pfizer Inc and BioNTech SE, 79% of 154 patients with solid tumors had developed antibodies, as had 84% of 135 similar people without cancer, a difference that was not deemed statistically significant. </p><p>Antibody levels were similar in the two groups, the researchers reported on Thursday in Cancer Discovery. </p><p>Separately, US researchers studied 133 adults taking immunosuppressive medications for chronic inflammatory diseases and 53 healthy volunteers. </p><p>At three weeks after the second shot of an mRNA vaccine from Pfizer/BioNTech or Moderna Inc, nearly 90% of the immunosuppressed participants had developed antibodies, although many had lower responses compared to the control group, according to a report published on Tuesday in Annals of Internal Medicine.</p><div><strong>Antibody therapy cuts hospitalization rates</strong></div><p>People with mild-to-moderate COVID-19 who were treated with a monoclonal antibody &quot;cocktail&quot; had lower hospitalization rates than similar people who did not receive the treatment, researchers reported on Monday in EClinicalMedicine. </p><p>They looked at nearly 1,400 such patients, roughly half of whom had received Regeneron Pharmaceutical Inc&#x27;s combination monoclonal antibody therapy. Among those who received the treatment, about 45% were older than 65, and many had high blood pressure, obesity, diabetes, lung disease and other risk factors. </p><p>By four weeks after the treatment, 1.6% of them had been hospitalized, compared to 4.8% of patients not treated with the monoclonal antibodies. The study was not randomized and cannot prove the treatment caused the better outcomes. </p><p>However, it &quot;suggests that when patients who are at high risk due to a range of comorbidities contract a mild or moderate case of COVID-19, this combination of monoclonal injections gives them a chance of a nonhospitalized recovery,&quot; study leader Dr. Raymund Razonable of the Mayo Clinic in Rochester, Minnesota in a statement.</p><div><strong>RELATED VIDEO</strong></div><figure class="op-interactive"><iframe allow="autoplay; fullscreen" frameBorder="0" height="100%" id="ivsplayer01" scrolling="no" src="https://player.ivideosmart.com/ivsplayer/v4/dist/html/iframe-src.html?iframeid=ivsplayer01&amp;key=e8c22c015ca9eafa76f1e3edfa03c603&amp;spid=3001339&amp;vid=1625301" width="100%"></iframe></figure><div class="iwantbar">Watch more in <a href="//www.iwantv.com.ph/">iWantv</a> or <a href="//tfc.tv/">TFC.tv</a></div>

New kidney problems linked to 'long COVID'

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New kidney problems linked to 'long COVID'

Nancy Lapid,

Reuters

Published Sep 04, 2021 12:08 AM PHT

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Updated Sep 04, 2021 12:09 AM PHT

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coronavirus

COVID-19

pandemic

long COVID

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