Researchers at Mount Sinai Health System’s Icahn School of Medicine and the Yale School of Medicine identified blood biomarkers that can help diagnose long Covid, a chronic condition that can be difficult to pin down.
The research, published in the journal Nature on Monday, may help pinpoint root causes of long Covid and aid in treatment of the ailment.
“These findings are important—they can inform more sensitive testing for long Covid patients and personalized treatments for long Covid that have, until now, not had a proven scientific rationale,” David Putrino, the study’s lead author and director of rehabilitation innovation at Mount Sinai, said in a statement.
Between January 2021 and June 2022, researchers analyzed blood samples from 268 patients at the Mount Sinai Hospital, Mount Sinai Union Square, and Yale School of Medicine who had never had Covid-19, had fully recovered from a clinically confirmed Covid case, or had long Covid symptoms for four or more months after a Covid infection.
Patients with long Covid had an increased number of antibodies for non-Covid viruses such as the Epstein-Barr virus, which causes mononucleosis, as well as lower levels of the stress hormone cortisol compared to the other patient groups, the study found. These biomarkers don’t show up on routine lab work, Akiko Iwasaki, the study’s coauthor and Sterling Professor of Immunobiology and Molecular, Cellular, and Developmental Biology at Yale University, said in a statement.
Long Covid can cause a range of symptoms including fatigue, headaches, and joint and muscle pain that can be hard to explain and manage, according to the CDC, though every patient presents differently.
Despite the condition affecting about 7% of US adults, or 18 million people, per the latest CDC data, the varying symptoms can make it difficult to develop therapies for long Covid, according to the researchers.
“This means that physicians must listen to their patients and perform a wide variety of physiological and lab tests, while adopting a highly personalized approach to the medical management of long Covid. There is no ‘silver bullet’ for treating long Covid, because it is an illness that infiltrates complex systems such as the immune and hormonal regulation,” Putrino said in a statement.
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