A complete guide to long COVID symptoms, as per NHS reports

1. Long COVID symptoms you must be aware about

The novel coronavirus has remained with us for almost a year now. While many of its symptoms and the level of risks it poses on different individuals have come to the surface, the possibility of the long term effects of the deadly virus are still being observed and explored by scientists and medical professionals. That said, a recent report has listed down more than a dozen of long COVID symptoms, which could range from a simple rash to heightened chest pain.

2. What is Long COVID?

Long COVID is defined by the long term effects coronavirus imposes on people. as the symptoms experienced by the people and the effects the coronavirus has on various individuals for weeks or months beyond the initial illness. According to the National Institute for Health and Care Excellence (NICE), long COVID lasts for more than 12 weeks, although some other people consider symptoms that last more than eight weeks to be long Covid.

3. 14 of the most common long COVID symptoms, according to the NHS

While the vaccine rollout may have brought about a sigh of relief, much is still left for speculation at the moment. With the long term effects of the coronavirus, people have been struggling more due to long COVID than by the initial symptoms. That said, the UK's National Health Services (NHS) has listed down a series of long COVID symptoms that people must pay heed to.

- Extreme exhaustion and fatigue

- Brain fog or mental confusion

- Insomnia or sleep deprivation

- Heart palpitations

- Shortness of breath

- Chest pain

- Dizziness

- Pins and needles (an uncomfortable sensation)

- Nausea, diarrhoea, abdominal pain and loss of appetite

-Fever, dry cough, headaches, sore throat, changes or loss of sense of smell and taste

- Rashes

- Joint pain

- Depression and anxiety

- Tinnitus

According to the NHS, many people recover within a few days or weeks or with 12 weeks after infection. But some continue to face long term health issues and last for long.

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4. How long does post-COVID syndrome last for?

According to a study published in The Lancet, more than 75% of the people who were hospitalized for COVID-19 still had at least one symptom 6 months after recovering. The research observed 1,733 people who had tested positive for COVID-19 in Wuhan, China, and tracked their recovery from June to September. The study claimed that about 76% of the volunteers experienced lingering symptoms of COVID-19 long after being cured of the illness.

5. Common symptoms of coronavirus

Besides the symptoms of long COVID, it is important to identify the initial and the most common symptoms of COVID-19, so as to diagnose it faster and prevent it from causing further damage. That said, here are some of the most common and classic symptoms of COVID-19.

- Fever

- Dry cough

- Sore throat

- Runny and stuffy nose

- Chest pain and shortness of breath

- Fatigue

- Gastrointestinal infection

- Loss of sense of smell and taste

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6. Steps to take

Long COVID symptoms occur and last post-recovery. It is a state where lingering and long term effects of the virus tend to take a massive toll on the body.

That said, it is important to take all the precautionary measures, which could stop the step of the virus and prevent post COVID complications to.

Wear your masks regularly, sanitize your hands thoroughly and maintain social distancing at crowded places. Do not endanger yourself and others. 

This is only for your information, kindly take the advice of your doctor for medicines, exercises and so on.     

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Plant-rich diet protects against foodborne pathogens, mice study shows

Mice fed a plant-rich diet are less susceptible to gastrointestinal (GI) infection from a pathogen such as the one currently under investigation for a widespread E. coli outbreak tied to romaine lettuce, UT Southwestern researchers report. A strain of E. coli known as EHEC, which causes debilitating and potentially deadly inflammation in the colon with symptoms such as bloody diarrhea and vomiting, is implicated in several foodborne outbreaks worldwide each year.

There has been a lot of hearsay about whether a plant-based diet is better for intestinal health than a typical Western diet, which is higher in oils and protein but relatively low in fruits and vegetables. So we decided to test it." Vanessa Sperandio, Ph.D., professor of microbiology and biochemistry at UT Southwestern

Her study on a mouse model of EHEC is published this week in Nature Microbiology.

"Plant-rich diets are high in pectin, a gel-like substance found in many fruits and vegetables. Pectin is digested by the gut microbiota into galacturonic acid, which we find can inhibit the virulence of EHEC," she adds.

"This is relevant to public health because EHEC outbreaks lead to hemorrhagic colitis, which is debilitating and sometimes causes death, particularly in the very young and the elderly," she says.

Intestinal pathogens like EHEC sense the complex chemistry inside the GI tract to compete with the gut's resident microbiota to establish a foothold, Sperandio says. Over centuries, the pathogens have developed different strategies to compete against the so-called good, or commensal, microbes that normally line the gut.

Those commensals include harmless strains of E. coli living in the colons of humans and other mammals, where they help the host's normal digestion process, she adds. The word commensal means "eating at the same table" and that is what the symbiotic bacteria that make up the gut's microbiota do.

The commensals that line the gut present a significant barrier to intestinal pathogens, Sperandio explains. EHEC and similar gram-negative bugs overcome that barrier by deploying a secretion system called T3SS.

T3SSs act like molecular syringes to inject a mix of virulence proteins into the cells lining the host's colon, setting off inflammation and symptoms of infection. Because mice are unaffected by EHEC, researchers use a similar pathogen, Citrobacter rodentium, in mouse studies, Sperandio explains.
"Our study finds first that the good E. coli and the pathogenic ones like EHEC use different sugars as nutrients," she says, adding that the two types of E. coli may have evolved to avoid competing for the same energy sources. "Second, we find that dietary pectin protects against the pathway the pathogenic EHEC uses to become more virulent."

Another type of commensal gut bacteria breaks down dietary pectin from fruit and vegetables, creating galacturonic acid, a sugar acid that the EHEC and C. rodentium use in two ways. Initially, the pathogen uses that sugar acid as an energy source to expand in the gut, Sperandio says.

"Once the sugar acid becomes depleted, the pathogen changes its survival strategy, almost like flipping a switch," she says. Instead of using the galacturonic acid for nourishment, the infectious bacteria employs it in a signaling pathway that increases the EHEC's and similar bacteria's virulence using the syringe-like T3SS.

In the study, mice fed pectin for about a week withstood infection. Comparing the colons of six mice fed a chow diet with 5 percent extra pectin from citrus peel with four mice on a typical diet, the researchers found a much lower rate of infection in the pectin-eating mice, Sperandio says.

The amount of bacteria in the mouse gut was measured by daily stool checks and by analysis of the amount of bacteria in a pouch at the juncture of the small and large intestines, called the cecum, at the experiment's end.

The researchers found that mice on the pectin-enriched chow had about 10,000 bacteria in the cecum compared to 1 million bacteria in mice on the typical diet. The pectin group also had fewer symptoms, she says, adding that a pectin level of 5 percent appears to prevent the pathogen from activating its virulence repertoire.

She stresses that the research is one step in a journey to define the molecular mechanisms that govern how the commensal species in the gut impact the virulence of intestinal pathogens.

"This is not translatable to humans yet. We hope a better understanding of how intestinal disease develops will lead to strategies to reduce the incidence or, at least, the symptoms caused by these gram-negative pathogens, possibly through new vaccines or drugs," she says.

this is only for your information, kindly take the advice of your doctor for medicines, exercises and so on.     
https://gscrochetdesigns.blogspot.com. one can see my crochet creations  
https://gseasyrecipes.blogspot.com. feel free to view for easy, simple and healthy recipes    
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 source- newsmedical