What are the 3 main types of long COVID?

A new study seeks to advance the understanding of long COVID.

It finds that long COVID can be divided into three types of conditions, depending on the type of symptoms experienced.

The authors of the study also find links between COVID-19 variants, symptoms, and long COVID’s duration.

As experts attempt to unravel the tangle of symptoms and long-term effects of what is collectively known as “long COVID,” a new study seeks to provide some clarity.

Working with data collected in a health study app by personalized nutrition company ZOE, researchers from King’s College London in the U.K. have begun to discern some order in the chaos.

Neurological symptoms — the most commonly reported long COVID symptoms — include anosmia/dysosmia, brain fog, headache, delirium, depression, and fatigue. (Loss of taste from COVID is typically attributable to a loss of smell.)

Respiratory symptoms involve possible damage to the lungs and include severe shortness of breath, Desperately seeking answers, he called up his nutritionist wondering if he was eating wrong. He asked his coach a hundred questions about what was wrong with him. He wondered if practicing was a waste, but he trained hard anyway.

“I was sent to the USA to train by those supporting me for 4-5 months. Even after I failed at World’s they told me it’s not a big deal. But I was angry at myself. So I thought of it from every angle,” he would describe his stormy state of mind. Senior players received calls asking them to analyse his mistakes. All that masochism finally yielded a result.

“I thought if hard work doesn’t give medals nothing will. Thankfully people trusted me.” He was especially bothered about those that had funded his international trips and might’ve been wondering if he was worth the effort. “I didn’t want them to think I’m not worth their trust.” palpitations, fatigue, and chest pain.

Systemic/inflammatory and abdominal symptoms include musculoskeletal pain, anemia, myalgias, gastrointestinal disorders, malaise, and fatigue.

Unfortunately, we could not robustly evaluate the effect of vaccination for these two variants. For Alpha, we didn’t have enough individuals vaccinated at the time of infection. For Delta, we didn’t have enough unvaccinated individuals at the time of infection who developed long COVID,” she pointed out.

Systemic/inflammatory and abdominal conditions were lightly associated with all variants.

The duration of symptoms

“On average,” said Dr. Canas, “the wild-type form of the virus has shown a longer prevalence of symptoms, 30 weeks when compared with Delta and Alpha at 24 and 25 weeks respectively.”

“However,” she noted, “since we only analyzed data from individuals with illness for longer than 12 weeks, these results are less significant than the profiling of the clusters, and would require further research, which would also consider the effect of vaccination.”

“The findings of the study,” said Dr. Marathe, “suggest that individuals struggling with long COVID, who experience severe shortness of breath, hoarse voice, loss of smell, fatigue, delirium, anosmia, headache, and fever were more likely to [experience] prolonged and severe symptoms.”

“Physicians armed with this information,” she said, “may be able to better counsel their patients and expectations for symptom improvement. They may also work towards targeted treatment approaches that address the symptom cluster impacting, and hopefully improving, clinical care for the patients.”

What about Omicron?

The authors of the study are still analyzing data related to the Omicron variants, but have shared some early insights.

Dr. Marathe cited other research into the relationship between Omicron variants and long COVID:

“Some studies have reported a lower risk of developing long COVID following COVID-19 infection with the Omicron variant compared to the Delta variant, while others have noted that patients who develop long COVID following Omicron variant infection have less severe disease. This is also true for the overall decreased severity of symptoms during acute Omicron infection.