Home » Long Covid, effects measured with fitness bracelets: they last 4 months and affect the heart and sleep

Long Covid, effects measured with fitness bracelets: they last 4 months and affect the heart and sleep

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Covid not only affects the lungs but leaves various signs in the body, from the heart to sleep. For the first time they have been monitored and measured with a common tool but which has proved effective in recording their effects on the organism.

A study published by Jama Network Open magazine certified that fitness trackers, smartwatches, and all wearable devices that monitor vital parameters can be used and have revealed that ‘long’ disease appears in 14% of people which become infected and which, in this form, lasts an average of four months. The study compared data from 641 individuals with respiratory disease but negative for Covid with 243 volunteers who instead had the infection.

In all cases they were noticed changes in heartbeat, in the sleep-wake rhythm and in physical activity, but these parameters take much longer to return to normal in those affected by Sars-Cov-2. On average, the resting heart rate in Covid patients does not return to normal before two and a half months, physical activity before a month while the sleep wake rhythm is regularized around day 24 from diagnosis.

For those with ‘long Covid’, 14% of the sample considered, the symptoms last much longer, with the heart rate remaining higher than normal for four months. According to the study, the researchers explain, those with the ‘chronic’ form of the disease usually have more severe symptoms at the beginning than those who do not develop it.

“Our data – says Jennifer Radin of the Scripps Research Translational Institute, one of the authors. – suggest that the severity of the initial symptoms, starting with the alteration of the heart rate, can be used to predict how long it will take the patient to recover from the infection. . In the future, with a larger sample, it will be possible to understand why people have different symptoms from each other. “

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There are several studies on the prevalence of ‘long Covid’, with mixed results. According to the latest ISS document, the problem could affect one in four patients. An analysis published in pre-print a few days ago by a group of British scientists and based on British data found that 14.8% of the sample studied had symptoms for more than 3 months. For the American CDC, the head of the agency Rochelle Walensky said instead, the rate is a bit higher, around 20%. “With the term ‘post Covid or Long Covid – he explained during a hearing in Congress – we mean different symptoms that appear four or more weeks after the infection”.

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