London: Overweight girls usually tend to expertise signs of long Covid, based on new analysis. The examine from the University of East Anglia (UEA) reveals that having the next Body Mass Index (BMI) is linked with the situation and that girls usually tend to expertise lengthy Covid than males. It is among the largest research on lengthy Covid within the UK, the examine mentioned.

The analysis, revealed in PLOS Global Public Health, additionally reveals that individuals with lengthy Covid had been more likely to want further, and infrequently lasting, care on the National Health System (NHS) than those that make a swift restoration.

“Long Covid is a complex condition that develops during or after having Covid, and it is classified as such when symptoms continue for more than 12 weeks,” mentioned Professor Vassilios Vassiliou, from UEA’s Norwich Medical School.

“Just over two million people in the UK are thought to suffer from long Covid and it affects people in different ways. Breathlessness, a cough, heart palpitations, headaches, and severe fatigue are among the most prevalent symptoms,” mentioned Vassiliou.

“Other symptoms may include chest pain or tightness, brain fog, insomnia, dizziness, joint pain, depression and anxiety, tinnitus, loss of appetite, headaches, and changes to sense of smell or taste,” mentioned Vassiliou.

“We wanted to find out what factors might make people more or less susceptible to developing long Covid,” mentioned Vassiliou.

The analysis staff surveyed sufferers in Norfolk, UK, who had obtained a optimistic Covid PCR take a look at end in 2020. A complete of 1,487 individuals took half in a web based survey which lined long-Covid signs equivalent to breathlessness, chest ache, fatigue, reminiscence issues, and nervousness.

They discovered that greater than half of the contributors (774) had been experiencing no less than one lengthy Covid symptom, exhibiting a excessive self-reported prevalence.

Next, they seemed to see what elements may make individuals kind of more likely to undergo from the situation by wanting on the contributors’ medical data.

Factors together with BMI, intercourse, treatment use, different well being circumstances, and whether or not they lived in a disadvantaged space had been taken into consideration.

“We show that more than a half of the survey respondents who tested positive for Covid in the East of England during the first year of the pandemic went on to report long Covid symptoms,” mentioned Vassiliou.

“All of these people were infected in the months before the Covid vaccination programme was rolled out and they suffered from numerous new symptoms that were not present before their Covid infection,” mentioned Vassiliou.

“Interestingly, we found that more women than men had long Covid symptoms. We also found that having a higher BMI was linked with long Covid.”

“This is really important because information like this can be used to profile those people who are at risk’ of developing long Covid,” mentioned Vassiliou.

“We also found that people with long Covid were over three times more likely to use healthcare services than those who didn’t display long Covid symptoms,” mentioned Vassiliou.

“We hope that our work will help policymakers plan local services and also inform the wider public of the scale of the long Covid pandemic,” mentioned Vassiliou.

“When COVID-19 struck it was new to everyone. All clinicians and the wider health and care system worked extremely hard together to deal with the impacts of the virus and protect our people and communities,” mentioned Dr Mark Lim, interim service director of the Norfolk and Waveney Integrated Care Board.