According to a study published in Nature Medicine, patients with COVID-19 have a higher risk of experiencing brain issues like strokes, migraine headaches, and depression for a year following their infection than people who weren’t infected.
According to the study, 7% more patients with COVID than those who were not infected developed neurological problems. According to a press statement on the study from the Washington University School of Medicine, it equates to around 6.6 million people in the United States who have experienced brain disorders as a result of the virus.
“The outcomes demonstrate the catastrophic long-term effects of COVID-19. These are essential components of lengthy COVID. According to the press release, senior author Ziyad Al-Aly, MD, a clinical epidemiologist at Washington University, “the virus is not necessarily as innocuous as some individuals assume it is.
154,000 American veterans who tested positive for COVID between March 1, 2020, and January 15, 2021 had their health data reviewed by researchers. This data was compared to health records for 5.8 million persons who were alive before COVID arrived in the United States and 5.6 million people who did not have COVID at that time.
According to Al-Aly, the researchers examined 44 brain problems in both hospitalised and outpatient patients, including “brain fog” and anxiety. He pointed out that the majority of earlier studies on extended COVID only included hospitalised patients.
He claimed that both previously healthy people and those who had minor infections were experiencing neurological issues. “It doesn’t matter if you’re a young person, an older person, a man or a woman, or what colour you are. It makes no difference whether you smoked or not, or whether you had any other bad habits or health issues.
Because COVID vaccines were not made available in the United States until December 2020, very few participants in the trial had received one. According to the press release, a prior investigation led by Al-Aly discovered that the COVID vaccine lowers the likelihood of long-term brain issues by roughly 20%.
