TLC Sessions - Living with Long Covid – Details, episodes & analysis

Dr Benjamin Krishna and the Virology & Immunology team at Cambridge University have identified a protein, elevated in the blood of Long Covid patients, that could act as a potential biomarker for the condition.  This week, we spoke to Dr Krishna about their study, published in Science, which sampled the blood of Long Covid patients across several years. They found Interferon Gamma (IFNɣ) at, an average of, six times the normal level.  IFNɣ is a key protein in the body’s immune response, a moderator of inflammation and a mediator for fighting infection.  These raised levels of IFNɣ are indicative of the immune system remaining active throughout Long Covid.  The team found that levels returned to normal in patients once they recovered from the disease. 

These findings could help develop treatment strategies and offer a clear diagnosis for some Long Covid patients.

Living with Long Covid? How was your week?

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Dr Theoharis Theoharides, aka “The Mast Cell Master”, has been exploring the world of Mast Cells, their influence on our bodily functions, neurology and genetic make up, for over half a century.  The Director of the Center of Excellence for Neuroinflammation Research and Professor at the Institute for Neuro-Immune Medicine at Nova Southeastern University joins us this week to discuss the role that Mast Cells play in neurological conditions such as Long Covid, and the way in which we influence and change our mast cells' behaviour with our infections, stress levels, trauma and activity.

Living with Long Covid? How was your week?

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A supplement to Episode 68 - Consultant Neurologist Steven Allder of Re:Cognition Health explains what tinnitus is and why we are experiencing it in Long Covid.

Living with Long Covid? How was your week?

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A supplement to Episode 68 - Consultant Neurologist Steven Allder of Re:Cognition Health discusses the way that injury to the brain causes anxiety and depression in Traumatic Brain Injury and could explain some of the mental health impact of Long Covid.

Living with Long Covid? How was your week?

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Consultant Neurologist Steven Allder of Re:Cognition Health has applied his wealth of experience investigating Traumatic Brain Injury (TBI) and Functional Neurological Disorder (FND) to understanding the impact of Long Covid on the brain. In this week’s conversation we discuss inflammation of the brain of Long Covid patients which is visible using PET imaging;  Allder believes this inflammation could be driving the neurological symptoms, and beyond, in a similar way to the impact of a blow to the head observing numerous similarities to TBI; we discuss polyvagal nerve theory; and Allder explains the way in which it takes more than just cold, hard evidence to persuade the scientific community.

And following up on our previous episode, Dr Allder is working with Prof. Andrew Shaw at Attomarker, believing that Long Covid may be driven by viral persistence and that establishing a patient’s antibody gap, using the Attomarker testing, could enable us to remove viral residue with tailored antibody treatment.

Living with Long Covid? How was your week?

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Professor Andrew Shaw, University of Exeter, believes that he has devised a diagnostic test for Long Covid.  His company, Attomarker, have developed a test which can reveal a gap in a patient’s antibody spectrum – their response to acute SARS-COV2 from a finger prick of blood. This gap, he says, has lead to a viral residue that causes the chronic symptoms of Long Covid.  Their hypothesis is that the gap can then be filled, either with monoclonal antibodies, or with an appropriate vaccine, to rid the patient of the disease.

In this week’s episode we explore the theories of antibody response to the strains of Covid, the effects of the vaccine, the results that the Attomarker test and treatment which is being offered by Re:Cognition Health have so far yielded.

Living with Long Covid? How was your week?

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Imperial College Professor of Immunology, Danny Altmann  recently published “The immunology of long COVID”, a fantastically comprehensive overview in Nature Reviews Immunology.  In this week’s episode Altmann, to whom we first spoke in the summer of 2021, talks us through some of the highlights of the work he's reviewed - serotonin depletion, gut biopsy findings, anti-virals, monoclonal antibodies and T cell depletion, along with his impression of a wide range of issues facing Long Covid sufferers, doctors and researchers – the state of patient care, vaccines, and the lack of funding for large scale studies and trials.

Living with Long Covid? How was your week?

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Dr. Amy Proal is the President and Research Director of PolyBio Research Foundation, a non-profit organisation that brings together some of the brightest scientific minds to research how infection-associated chronic conditions are studied, diagnosed and treated.  Their work into Long Covid is bringing together some of the leaders in the field to accelerate studies and clinical trials to further develop understanding and treatment strategies for the condition.  In this week’s episode we talk to Dr. Proal about the current most prominent mechanistic theory of viral persistence in tissues, PolyBio’s research into anti-viral therapeutics, and SARS-COV2 strategies that could help us to prevent Long Covid, rather than having to constantly clear up the increasing residue for years to come.

Living with Long Covid? How was your week?

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Michael Peluso M.D., an HIV and infectious disease specialist at UCSF, has been studying Long Covid patients since April 2020 (LIINC Study).  This, along with his history of working with HIV and other viruses, has given him the knowledge and methods to make some break-throughs into Long Covid pathogenesis, effects and, potentially, treatments.  He, along with his team, has established that Long Covid causes T-cell and immune dysregulation and he has used multimodal molecular imaging to reveal that viral RNA reservoirs are persistent in Long Covid patients.  With the aim of clearing this viral debris, Peluso is now leading a clinical trial using a monoclonal antibody infusion.

Living with Long Covid? How was your week?

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Eric Topol must be one of the leading voices in Long Covid advocacy.  Cardiologist, scientist, author, editor-in-chief of Medscape, and founder of the Scripps Research Translational Institute, Topol has written about Long Covid in publications from The Lancet and Nature, to The Washington Post.  As a clinician a large proportion of his patients are now Long Covid sufferers and he spends a huge amount of his time pushing for advancements in Long Covid treatment and prevention. 

In this week’s episode Dr. Topol guides us through his frustrations surrounding the lack of urgency with which the world is treating this condition, the use of Metformin as a preventative therapy, his understandings of the mechanisms of Long Covid, and how we could make significant advancements by embracing digital data collection and technology. The Long Covid review which he authored with PLRC and Julia More Vogel, published in March this year, is now the third most downloaded medical paper of 2023.

Living with Long Covid? How was your week?

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