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Science

Doctors Find 'Antibody Signature' for Patients Most at Risk of Developing Long Covid (theguardian.com) 51

Posted by msmash from the moving-forward dept.
Doctors have discovered an "antibody signature" that can help identify patients most at risk of developing long Covid, a condition where debilitating symptoms of the disease can persist for many months. From a report: Researchers at University hospital Zurich analysed blood from Covid patients and found that low levels of certain antibodies were more common in those who developed long Covid than in patients who swiftly recovered. When combined with the patient's age, details of their Covid symptoms and whether or not they had asthma, the antibody signature allowed doctors to predict whether people had a moderate, high or very high risk of developing long-term illness. "Overall, we think that our findings and identification of an immunoglobulin signature will help early identification of patients that are at increased risk of developing long Covid, which in turn will facilitate research, understanding and ultimately targeted treatments for long Covid," said Onur Boyman, a professor of immunology who led the research. The team studied 175 people who tested positive for Covid and 40 healthy volunteers who acted as a control group. To see how their symptoms changed over time, doctors followed 134 of the Covid patients for up to a year after their initial infection. When Covid strikes, IgM antibodies ramp up rapidly, while IgG antibodies rise later and provide longer-term protection. Blood tests on the participants showed that those who developed long Covid -- also known as post-acute Covid-19 syndrome (Pacs) -- tended to have low levels of IgM and the antibody IgG3.
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Doctors Find 'Antibody Signature' for Patients Most at Risk of Developing Long Covid More

Doctors Find 'Antibody Signature' for Patients Most at Risk of Developing Long Covid

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  • Could be a similar mechanism to JKD, I think . . . even with the pathogen eliminated, malformed/misfolded protein forms may now be present and persistent in the bloodstream (self-replicating on contact with healthy proteins?).
    In good news, I hear that they'll stop holding my being stationed in Europe in the '80s against me. I guess my blood's not composed of some kind of molecular acid, after all.

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by spun ( 1352 )

      From what I understand it is inflammatory response proteins bound up in microscopic blood clots. So the body can't break them down and get rid of them, and they circulate throughout the body causing systemic inflammation.

    • Re: (Score:3)

      by ceoyoyo ( 59147 )

      *Low* levels were associated with long term illness. It suggests either the long COVID patients mounted a response that was different, maybe not as robust or slower, allowing the virus to do more damage.

      • *Low* levels were associated with long term illness. It suggests either the long COVID patients mounted a response that was different, maybe not as robust or slower, allowing the virus to do more damage.

        Good point, other long term infections that are vary in degrees of severity all the way up to being considered chronic act in similar ways. The HCV virus is one of them. Long term infection by HCV and many other viral infections can manifest symptoms in many different ways. Asymptomatic graves disease has been documented to be a manifestation of a small percentage of HCV suffers, non specific skin allergies and other autoimmune disorders have also been documented as being higher among long term sufferers of

  • Not an issue for Omicron (Score:1)

    by Anonymous Coward
    It is being widely reported that the Omicron variant is mostly asymptomatic, and even when there are symptoms it's essentially a cold or worst case flu-like. The people with long-COVID are going to be the people that were infected with the original strain or with Delta, both of which have now been displaced by the milder Omicron variant and people are rapidly gaining immunity through infection as this variant spreads approximately 5x more easily than Delta did, while being much less virulent.
    • This is confused. Omicron more mild compared to Delta. It is about as deadly and dangerous as the Alpha strain.

      • Re: (Score:3)

        by thomst ( 1640045 )

        JoshuaZ stated:

        This is confused. Omicron more mild compared to Delta. It is about as deadly and dangerous as the Alpha strain.

        That's like saying cobra venom is more mild compared to black mamba venom - and the alpha variant killed millions before the advent of the delta and omicron waves.

        My wife and I are both triple-vaxxed (all moderna) against Covid-19. She nonetheless got infected by what I have to assume was the omicron variant (she works in retail). I got it too, of course. Our symptoms consisted mainly of 5 days of continuously-running noses, occasionally spurred to a sprint by sneezing fits. No lung involveme

        • That's like saying cobra venom is more mild compared to black mamba venom - and the alpha variant killed millions before the advent of the delta and omicron waves.

          Yeah, this is a great analogy, and I'm going to steal it for other times this topic comes up.

        • Re: (Score:2)

          by tlhIngan ( 30335 )

          That's like saying cobra venom is more mild compared to black mamba venom - and the alpha variant killed millions before the advent of the delta and omicron waves.

          My wife and I are both triple-vaxxed (all moderna) against Covid-19. She nonetheless got infected by what I have to assume was the omicron variant (she works in retail). I got it too, of course. Our symptoms consisted mainly of 5 days of continuously-running noses, occasionally spurred to a sprint by sneezing fits. No lung involvement and no sore

    • Re: (Score:3)

      by narcc ( 412956 )

      This is a myth. Infection grants some people, not all [cdc.gov], some level of immunity, but it fades quickly. Immunity from the vaccine is both better and lasts longer.
      From Johns Hopkins [hopkinsmedicine.org]

      In case you needed another reason to do the right thing, if you've had Covid, there are additional benefits to getting vaxxed.

      • It is not a myth that whatever you believe, the statement "has been widely reported" is true for just about any position reported in the news. Whether it is scientifically accurate is a different question. That something has been widely reported only means that a large number of journalists are confused about something, which is fairly common for those who call themselves journalists these days.

        And it's also why I rarely trust information reported in the news.

      • Immunity from the vaccine is both better and lasts longer.

        Natural immunity is better [reuters.com], or at least more protective against variants since the one the vaccines were designed for, because the vaccines are highly targeted.

        Your Johns Hopkins link does not say natural immunity fades quickly or quicker than vaccine-induced immunity; here's what it says:

        Johns Hopkins has conducted a large study on natural immunity that shows antibody levels against COVID-19 coronavirus stay higher for a longer time in people who were infected by the virus and then were fully vaccinated with mRNA COVID-19 vaccines compared with those who only got immunized.

        ... it says immunity from the virus + a vaccine lasts longer than from just a vaccine.

        The CDC recommends a booster for the mRNA vaccines after 5 months, because:

        Early results showed that vaccine effectiveness dropped to 52 percent against Omicron 6 months [healthline.com] after the second dose

        And from the NIH [nih.gov]:

        However, 95% of the people had at least 3 out of 5 immune-system components that could recognize SARS-CoV-2 up to 8 months after infection. “Several months ago, our studies showed that natural infection induced a strong response, and this study now shows that the responses last,” Weiskopf says. “We are hopeful that a similar pattern of responses lasting over time will also emerge for the vaccine-induced responses.”

        So natural immunity is more durable.

        • Re: (Score:3)

          by narcc ( 412956 )

          You're missing a key part: You need to also get vaccinated. Natural immunity alone is the worst possible option.

          You say that, but then seem to ignore it completely:

          So natural immunity is more durable.

          This is clearly a lie. You made it the last thing in your post so that it looks like this is a conclusion supported by what you wrote earlier.

          I hope you get paid well for your disinformation. It's getting people killed.

          • Tell me how I misinterpreted the research I posted instead of just parroting Big Pharma's narrative. You're making claims and not supporting them at all. I'm not getting paid for supplying this actual information. Whether it's getting people killed depends on the science, and you're reciting the Scientism instead of referencing science.

  • Epstein-Barr virus and long covid. (Score:3)

    by godel_56 ( 1287256 ) on Wednesday January 26, 2022 @06:06PM (#62210123)

    We found that 66.7% (20/30) of long COVID subjects versus 10% (2/20) of control subjects in our primary study group were positive for EBV reactivation based on positive titers for EBV early antigen-diffuse (EA-D) IgG or EBV viral capsid antigen (VCA) IgM.

    https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC8233978/

    Epstein-Barr a.k.a. 'mono" sounds like a nasty little shit and a prime target for vaccine research. Here's two more recent studies:

    https://med.stanford.edu/news/all-news/2022/01/epstein-barr-virus-multiple-sclerosis.html

    https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/22693505/

  • "When combined with the patient's age, details of their Covid symptoms and whether or not they had asthma, the antibody signature allowed doctors to predict whether people had a moderate, high or very high risk of developing long-term illness."

    Weight/BMI and other potential comorbidities?

    • Weight/BMI are risks for severe covid. Long covid, not so much. Type II diabetes might bump the risk for a severe case turning long, but there are many, many people who were previously very fit and healthy who ended up with long covid after mild cases.

  • Signature not required (Score:1)

    by Anonymous Coward

    If they’re wearing a MAGA hat, cargo shorts, look 50lbs overweight, and sucking on a vape pen, they will probably catch Covid.

  • "When combined with the patient's age, details of their Covid symptoms and whether or not they had asthma, the antibody signature allowed doctors to predict whether people had a moderate, high or very high risk of developing long-term illness." What does that mean? This sounds like a data mining operation rather than science.

    • It is.

      The modern way that "experts" do research is to "read" observational studies (anecdotes) and assign whichever position has the most so-called studies saying something similar in order to publish another "study" on the topic. This is simillar to the something being "standard": https://m.xkcd.com/927/ [xkcd.com]

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by ceoyoyo ( 59147 )

      It means you can take a group of patients and predict which of four groups they belong to, each group having a different risk of developing long COVID.

      It's a standard technique when you suspect a nonlinear relationship but don't need to know, or don't have the large amount of data it usually takes, to fully characterize that relationship.

      Other examples include weight stratification into under-, healthy-, over- weight and obese, and age stratification by decade, child/adult/older adult etc.

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