- 1.9 million people in the UK alone say they experience long Covid symptoms
- Scientists found that people with long Covid had problems with iron levels in their blood.
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Experts may have found the cause of long Covid after discovering that low iron levels after an infection could be a key trigger.
An estimated 1.9 million people in the UK alone say they are experiencing symptoms of long Covid.
These can include fatigue, shortness of breath, muscle aches and problems with memory and concentration, and last long after the initial Covid infection has cleared.
Scientists now believe that problems with iron levels in the blood (and the body’s ability to regulate this important nutrient) could be a key factor in the current problems.
And the discovery could point to possible ways to prevent or treat the condition.
An estimated 1.9 million people in the UK alone say they are experiencing symptoms of long Covid. These symptoms may include fatigue, muscle aches, and loss of smell.
Shortly after the start of the pandemic, a team led by the University of Cambridge began recruiting people who had tested positive for the virus.
Over the course of a year, participants provided blood samples and it became clear that a significant number of patients would have symptoms that persisted.
In the end, the researchers focused their analysis on 214 people, about half of whom reported long Covid symptoms between three and ten months after their infection.
They found that ongoing inflammation and low blood iron levels could be seen as early as two weeks after an infection in those individuals who reported long Covid many months later.
They found that problems with blood iron levels were detected in the long Covid group regardless of age, sex or severity of infection.
Dr Aimee Hanson, who worked on the study while at the University of Cambridge and is now at the University of Bristol, said: “Iron levels and the way the body regulates iron were altered from the beginning during SARS-CoV-2 infection and took a long time to recover, especially in those people who reported long Covid months later.
“Although we saw evidence that the body was trying to rectify the low iron availability and resulting anemia by producing more red blood cells, it was not doing particularly well in the face of constant inflammation.”
Co-author Professor Hal Drakesmith, from the University of Oxford, said iron dysregulation is a natural response to infection.
“When the body has an infection, it responds by removing iron from the bloodstream,” he said.
“This protects us from potentially lethal bacteria that capture iron in the bloodstream and grow rapidly. It is an evolutionary response that redistributes iron in the body and blood plasma becomes an iron desert.
The researchers found that ongoing inflammation and low blood iron levels could be seen as early as two weeks after an infection in those individuals who reported long Covid many months later.
‘However, if this continues for a long time, there is less iron for the red blood cells, so oxygen is transported less efficiently, affecting metabolism and energy production, and for the white blood cells, which need iron to function properly. The protection mechanism ends up becoming a problem.”
The findings, published in the journal Nature Immunology, may help explain why symptoms such as fatigue and exercise intolerance are common in long Covid.
The researchers say the study points to possible ways to prevent or reduce the impact of long Covid by rectifying iron dysregulation during early infection.
One approach might be to control extreme inflammation as early as possible, before it affects iron regulation.
Another approach might involve iron supplementation; However, as Dr. Hanson noted, this may not be simple.
“It’s not necessarily that people don’t have enough iron in their bodies, but that it’s trapped in the wrong place,” he said.
“What we need is a way to remobilize iron and return it to the bloodstream, where it is most useful to red blood cells.”