1,721,229 research outputs found
The teachings of Long COVID
No full textLong COVID is prolonged illness resulting from SARS-CoV-2 infection. Its serious implications for individuals and society have been missing from public communication and pandemic policy. Here, I draw on my lived experience, research, and advocacy work with Long COVID and reflect on the lessons learnt
A negative COVID-19 test does not mean recovery
No full textPandemic policy must include defining and measuring what we mean by mild infection
What exactly is mild covid-19?
No full textWe still know very little about covid-19, but we do know that we cannot fight what we do not measur
Lessons from long COVID: working with patients to design better research
No full textThe perspectives of people with lived experience of any condition being researched must actively inform the research questions asked and the way in which we go about answering them. The experience of Long Covid gives a contemporary example of how working together with patients is integral to medical research.</p
Validation of an automated online 24-hour recall (myfood24) using nutrient biomarkers provides similar results to a traditional interviewer administered recall
No full textOnline dietary assessment tools can reduce administrative costs and facilitate repeated dietary assessment during follow-up in large-scale prospective studies. We developed an online 24-h recall (myfood24) with automated estimation of associated nutrient intake, and assessed validity against reference recovery, predictive and concentration biomarkers. Validity of the online tool was then compared with that of traditional interviewer-administered multiple-pass 24-h recalls and presented as the expected attenuation of any diet-disease associations estimated with the tool.Metabolically stable adults were recruited and completed the new online dietary recall, a traditional interviewer-based multiple-pass recall and provided samples of blood and urine for a range of reference biomarkers. Longer-term dietary intake was estimated from up to three recalls taken two weeks apart. Estimated intakes of protein, total sugars, potassium and sodium were compared with urinary biomarker concentrations. Estimated energy intake was compared with energy expenditure measured by three-plane accelerometry and open-circuit indirect calorimetry. Validity against these biomarkers was also compared to that estimated for traditional interviewer-administered multiple-pass 24-hour recalls.At least one biomarker sample was received from each of 212 participants. Compared to reference biomarkers, both the online 24-hour recall and interviewer-based recall led to attenuation of diet-disease associations. The online tool resulted in attenuation factors of around 0.2–0.3 which could have important effects on estimated risks. For example, if the true relative risk of a diet-disease association was 2.0, an attenuation factor of 0.3 would reduce the relative risk to 1.23. Ranking using intakes against repeated biomarkers as an estimate of truth, resulted in higher attenuation factors of approximately 0.3–0.4, with a smaller impact on risk estimates. Attenuation improved substantially on repeated application of the tool. Validity of the interviewer-based recall found similar attenuation factors, but it was more administratively burdensome and expensive to implement. The online tool typically provided 10–20% lower nutrient estimates compared to the interviewer-administered tool.Our findings show that, whilst results from both automated online and traditional interviewer-based dietary recalls are attenuated compared to objective biomarker measures, the myfood24 online 24-hour recall is comparable to the more time-consuming and costly traditional interviewer-based 24-hour recall across a wide range of measures. The less burdensome implementation of the online tool, with automated nutrient coding and easy replication over a longer time period with associated gains in precision, makes it well-placed for repeated use in large-scale prospective studies.<br/
Nisreen Alwan: Let’s equalise our antiracist language
No full textAntiracist language is one way to explicitly consider ethnicity and racism within our institutions, both during the pandemic and beyond
Changes in the trajectory of Long Covid symptoms following COVID-19 vaccination: community-based cohort study
No full textObjective To estimate associations between COVID-19 vaccination and Long Covid symptoms in adults who were infected with SARS-CoV-2 prior to vaccination.Design Observational cohort study using individual-level interrupted time series analysis.Setting Random sample from the community population of the UK.Participants 28,356 COVID-19 Infection Survey participants (mean age 46 years, 56% female, 89% white) aged 18 to 69 years who received at least their first vaccination after test-confirmed infection.Main outcome measures Presence of long Covid symptoms at least 12 weeks after infection over the follow-up period 3 February to 5 September 2021.Results Median follow-up was 141 days from first vaccination (among all participants) and 67 days from second vaccination (84% of participants). First vaccination was associated with an initial 12.8% decrease (95% confidence interval: −18.6% to −6.6%) in the odds of Long Covid, but increasing by 0.3% (−0.6% to +1.2%) per week after the first dose. Second vaccination was associated with an 8.8% decrease (−14.1% to −3.1%) in the odds of Long Covid, with the odds subsequently decreasing by 0.8% (−1.2% to −0.4%) per week. There was no statistical evidence of heterogeneity in associations between vaccination and Long Covid by socio-demographic characteristics, health status, whether hospitalised with acute COVID-19, vaccine type (adenovirus vector or mRNA), or duration from infection to vaccination.Conclusions The likelihood of Long Covid symptoms reduced after COVID-19 vaccination, and the improvement was sustained over the follow-up period after the second dose. Vaccination may contribute to a reduction in the population health burden of Long Covid, though longer follow-up time is needed
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