Tuning into Dr. Avindra Nath right now at Day 3 of Keystone Long COVID Symposium

Subject: 'Neurological Complications in Long COVID and ME/CFS'

#LongCOVID2025KeystoneSymposium
#KSLongCOVID25
#KeystoneLongCOVID From Dr. Nath:

CU Boulder: 'Why does the COVID-19 virus sicken some more than others? Discovery sheds light'

“We’ve discovered that there is an entire class of under-appreciated protein variants that can have an immense impact on our immune function" -Ed Chuong

colorado.edu/today/2024/12/… For years, scientists have looked to a critical piece of immune system machinery—known as the interferon pathway—for answers. There, when our cells sense an infection, they release a protein known as interferon, which warns other cells to fight the virus.

11/3/22, Open Mics with Dr. Stites: Show Me the Science: National Study on Long COVID

Dr. Michael Iademarco: “if we can understand & study the basic causes of long COVID…the understanding & therapies could extend to people with

podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/sho…

podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/sho… ..these other conditions.”

Medscape: 'Metformin May Reduce Long COVID in Non-Diabetic Population'

Researchers, led by Carolyn Bramante, MD, MPH, an internist, pediatrician, and obesity medicine specialist at the University of Minnesota Medical School in Minneapolis, simulated..

medscape.com/viewarticle/me… ..a randomized controlled trial of metformin vs control using the National COVID Cohort Collaborative (N3C) Electronic Health Record Database.'

Other trials have highlighted the anti-inflammatory and antiviral properties of metformin. The existing evidence coupled with

Dr. Nancy Klimas: “I mean the Long COVID people - we're only a couple years into this and the science is staggering. What we've learned in Long COVID - it's just extraordinary, that's because I’m gonna say it again - advocates went to Congress and said this 17 million people.. with this new condition that's taking them out of the workforce and they're sick would you do something? And they put $1.15 billion into the NIH budget to address Long COVID and now two years later we have thousands of excellent papers coming out of that effort -

Medscape: 'Does Mast Cell Activation Syndrome Underlie Multiple Ills?'

medscape.com/viewarticle/do… "Stephanie L. Grach, MD, assistant professor of medicine at the Mayo Clinic, Rochester, Minnesota, gave an introductory talk about the importance of changing "the medical paradigm around complex chronic illness." Much of the rest of the meeting was devoted to sharing approaches

10/10/24 - Ed Yong, Journalist/Author - XOXO Festival (2024)

"Very early in my reporting on the pandemic, I  started hearing about people who were sick & were not getting better. At the time, the phrase long COVID and long haulers were not part of...

...common understanding. Many of the doctors and  clinicians I spoke to didn't know that this was a possibility."

NJEM, 9/11/24: “What Exactly is Long COVID?”

“Long COVID needs to be in the discussion, the everyday discussion for physicians, for medical professionals, for researchers, for our government. We need to understand that this is a public health crisis”

podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/wha… “I think the biggest problem is that medical providers are not engaged in long COVID. It's not on their radar. Like, the amount of money they have put into research for long COVID is like spitting in the ocean”

Checking out Day 2 of 'RECOVER Treating Long COVID – Navigating the Pathway Forward' hosted by NIH

#RecoverTLC #RecoverTLC

Bertagnolli: “Some people have such severe fatigue, they can’t get out of bed..this weird tachycardia, where if they stand up, they pass right out..this brain fog. These are young people..need more understanding of the biology..is it staying in the body..our leading hypothesis.”

https://twitter.com/bhanlon15/status/1837210699522576479

“Is it staying in the body and replicating - has the body not been able to clear the virus out so that the active virus is still there? That's kind of our leading hypothesis right now, why these people are not getting better, but we don’t know for sure…”

'UK researchers find Alzheimer’s-like brain changes in long COVID patients'

'New research from the Univ. of Kentucky shows compelling evidence that cognitive impairments observed in long COVID share striking similarities with those seen in Alzheimer’s..'

uknow.uky.edu/research/uk-re… Study link: 'Parallel electrophysiological abnormalities due to COVID-19 infection and to Alzheimer's disease and related dementia'

alz-journals.onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1002/al…

"Does Long COVID Lead to Alzheimer’s? A New Study Took an Unexpected Turn"

'A study into whether long COVID patients were more prone to Alzheimer's instead opened the door to new treatments for long COVID itself'

beingpatient.com/long-covid-bra… The participants whose immune cells mounted an interferon response — a pathway used by the immune system to fight viruses  — showed cognitive improvement.

“One of the key findings is that we see the immune cells in the cerebrospinal fluid, recruiting cells to fight infection,”

Healthcare Brew: 'What is long Covid?'

'The condition affects an estimated 400 million people worldwide'

'Overall, there are still many unknowns when it comes to long Covid, and researchers are doubling down to find answers'

healthcare-brew.com/stories/2024/0… '“There are a lot of studies and a lot of research going on in this area,” Viswanathan said. “Ultimately, I think that we are learning quite a bit, especially in the last year.”

KJZZ: 'A groundbreaking study aims to determine if long COVID-19 could lead to another type of dementia'

'Sabbagh says there are currently no treatment guidelines..of the long-term effects of neurological COVID, which is why this study is so significant'

kjzz.org/kjzz-news/2024… ''Dr. Marwan Sabbagh is the professor of Neurology at the Barrow Neurological Institute. He says one of the biggest complaints that people have, weeks or months after their COVID-19 symptoms have subsided, is brain fog or other issues, like memory loss.'

8/20, Institute for Neuro-Immune Medicine: 'Finding Treatments for Fibromyalgia and ME/CFS' w/Nancy Klimas

Klimas (on RECOVER): 'what we have..this experience, data on ME/CFS..they said we can't compare them. Why? Because they said duration of illness..'
Klimas: 'The RECOVER Network...there wasn't a large university in the country that was left out of that application. 200 applications that involved multiple institutions, 248 I think. They all went in. Everybody went in for a RECOVER application. Think about what that means...

"Study uncovers the basis of COVID-19-related brain fog"

"New research from the University of Minnesota found that COVID-19 triggers inflammation in the brain, which is linked to many COVID-related symptoms such as fatigue and “brain fog.”

twin-cities.umn.edu/news-events/st… Published in Frontiers in Microbiology, the researchers examined the specific ways the virus impacts the brain, developing a preclinical model to accurately mimic the effects of COVID-19 on humans to explore the impact of age and sex on the brain-related impacts of the disease.

CU Boulder: Long COVID link to cortisol & hair-trigger stress response explored

Proteins left behind..can cause cortisol levels in brain to plummet, inflame the nervous system & prime its immune cells to hyper-react..according to new animal research by CU
colorado.edu/today/2024/08/… To explore just how such antigens impact the brain and nervous system, the research team injected an antigen called S1 (a subunit of the “spike” protein) into the spinal fluid of rats and compared them to a control group.

Science Alert: “We May Have Found a Target For Treating The Fatigue of Long COVID”

“Of long COVID's numerous symptoms, an intolerance to exertion could be considered one of the more debilitating”

sciencealert.com/we-may-have-fo… “In humans, inflammation causes neurons to release the immune cytokine interleukin-6 (IL-6). The team found a comparable protein in their test animals traveled to their muscles via the bloodstream and activated a cellular program called JAK-STAT. JAK-STAT then turned down the

Washington Post Live, #MEAction's Jaime Seltzer on RECOVER: "..what was dismaying, was that NIH really didn't reach out to anyone who had experience in infectious-associated chronic illness..I thought of it as one of the most colossal missed opportunities in science of all-time." "I think now, that there are people within RECOVER who are brilliant and their doing incredible work. I hope that if and when we get some more money for Long COVID research, we have more people involved who have had the four decades of experience that we needed – so many of the

Health Rising: “How Neuroinflammation May Be Knocking out the Muscles in Long COVID, ME/CFS and Fibromyalgia”

‘For the first time, inflammation in the brain was shown to reduce muscle mitochondrial activity and endurance dramatically…’

healthrising.org/blog/2024/07/2… “The authors proposed that IL-6 and Stat inhibitors could help, and mentioned the Stat inhibitor ruxolitinib, which has been approved to treat alopecia, psoriasis, lymphoma…

Avindra Nath has proposed that Jak-STAT inhibitors be trialed in long COVID and ME/CFS as well”

Yale Med: 'New Evidence Supports Autoimmunity as One of Long COVID’s Underlying Drivers'

'New research offers evidence that autoimmunity—in which the body’s immune system targets its own tissues—is a driver in some cases of Long COVID.'

medicine.yale.edu/news-article/n… "We believe this is a big step forward in trying to understand and provide treatment to patients with this subset of Long COVID.'' - Akiko Iwasaki, PhD