Reactivation of herpesvirus type-6 and IgA/IgM-mediated responses to activin-A underpin Long COVID, including affective symptoms and cfs 2023, Vojdani

Abstract
Background: Persistent infection with severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV-2), reactivation of dormant viruses, and immune-oxidative responses are involved in Long COVID.

Objectives: To investigate whether Long COVID and depressive, anxiety and chronic fatigue syndrome (CFS) symptoms, are associated with IgA/IgM/IgG to SARS-CoV-2, human Herpesvirus type 6 (HHV-6), Epstein-Barr Virus (EBV), and immune-oxidative biomarkers.

Methods: We examined 90 Long COVID patients and 90 healthy controls. We measured serum IgA/IgM/IgG against HHV-6 and EBV and their deoxyuridine 5′-triphosphate nucleotidohydrolase (duTPase), SARS-CoV-2, and activin-A, C-reactive protein (CRP), advanced oxidation protein products (AOPP), and insulin resistance (HOMA2-IR).

Results: Long COVID patients showed significant elevations in IgG/IgM-SARS-CoV-2, IgG/IgM-HHV-6 and HHV-6-duTPase, IgA/IgM-activin-A, CRP, AOPP, and HOMA2-IR. Neural network analysis yielded a highly significant predictive accuracy of 80.6% for the Long COVID diagnosis (sensitivity: 78.9%, specificity: 81.8%, area under the ROC curve=0.876); the topmost predictors were: IGA-activin-A, IgG-HHV-6, IgM-HHV-6-duTPase, IgG-SARS-CoV-2, and IgM-HHV-6 (all positively) and a factor extracted from all IgA levels to all viral antigens (inversely). The top-5 predictors of affective symptoms due to Long COVID were: IgM-HHV-6-duTPase, IgG-HHV-6, CRP, education, IgA-activin-A (predictive accuracy of r=0.636). The top-5 predictors of CFS due to Long COVID were in descending order: CRP, IgG-HHV-6-duTPase, IgM-activin-A, IgM-SARS-CoV-2, and IgA-activin-A (predictive accuracy: r=0.709).

Conclusion: Reactivation of HHV-6, SARS-CoV-2 persistence, and autoimmune reactions to activin-A combined with activated immune-oxidative pathways play a major role in the pathophysiology of Long COVID as well as the severity of affective symptoms and CFS due to Long COVID.

https://www.medrxiv.org/content/10.1101/2023.07.23.23293046v1

 

"Approximately three to four months after recovering from acute COVID-19, all participants in study 1 were interviewed by an experienced psychiatrist. The purpose of this interview was to collect information regarding the sociodemographic and clinical characteristics of the participants. The psychiatrist evaluated the presence and severity of CFS symptoms using the Fibro-fatigue (FF) scale (Zachrisson, Regland et al. 2002)"

 

Another Michael Maes paper. I do not trust anything he puts his name to.

 

Sorry, meant to link to our thread on that paper, A rating scale for fibromyalgia and chronic fatigue syndrome (the FibroFatigue scale), 2002, Zachrisson et al

 

Now published:
https://www.cambridge.org/core/jour...gue-syndrome/81215D30164560FA7C3B2646997EC3CD