Research shows long-term Covid may not be the cause of constant fatigue, brain fog or muscle pain

Constant fatigue. Brain fog. Muscle pain.

These are the most common complaints in people with ‘long Covid’.

But new research shows that these symptoms can just as easily occur in people who have never had Covid.

After tracking thousands of people who had and had not tested positive, the team found that Covid made “no difference” to whether someone would develop these problems: fatigue, problems with thinking or memory, and muscle pain.

The study, called INSPIRE and funded by the CDC, is part of a growing body of research showing that long-term Covid symptoms may be exaggerated or attributed to other illnesses.

UCLA researchers found that patients who tested positive for Covid were no more likely to be diagnosed with chronic fatigue syndrome than patients who never had Covid.

Violet Affleck — daughter of Ben Affleck and Jennifer Garner — has put long Covid back in the spotlight after campaigning for mandatory mask wearing. The 18-year-old claims she suffered a ‘post-viral infection’ in 2019; Seen with Affleck and stepmother Jennifer Lopez in 2023

Long Covid also recently came back into the spotlight when Ben Affleck and Jennifer Garner’s daughter Violet Affleck advocated for mandatory face masks.

The 18-year-old claims she suffered a “post-viral infection” in 2019.

Researchers from the University of California – Los Angeles (UCLA) recruited more than 4,000 adults who tested positive for Covid between December 2020 and August 2022.

The participants were divided into two groups: Covid-positive and Covid-negative.

In both groups, three to four percent of participants reported symptoms consistent with myalgic encephalomyelitis/chronic fatigue syndrome (ME/CFS), a disease that causes extreme fatigue, brain fog and similar symptoms.

This finding suggests that Covid makes ‘no difference’ in whether or not someone gets the disease, even though Covid has long been considered a cause of ME/CFS.

Dr. Joann Elmore, co-senior author of the study and professor of internal medicine and health services research at UCLA, said, “ME/CFS is no more common in people infected with COVID-19 than in people with other acute illnesses.”

However, the prevalence of ME/CFS “could place a very heavy burden on society and our health care system,” she said.

One important caveat, however, is that ME/CFS is difficult to diagnose, as there is no gold standard test to detect the disease. This means that symptoms such as exhaustion can be the result of other illnesses.

The researchers recruited 4,378 participants aged 18 to 64 who tested positive for Covid and showed symptoms between December 2020 and August 2022.

Patients over 65 years of age were excluded to rule out ‘age-related’ diseases that could contribute to ME/CFS.

The average age of participants was 38 years and approximately 68 percent of patients were female.

At each three-month follow-up, approximately one-third of participants in both groups reported at least one of the following five symptoms: post-exertional malaise (fatigue after minimal physical or mental activity), unrefreshing sleep, fatigue, orthostatic intolerance (difficulty standing or sitting upright), and cognitive impairment.

This suggests that patients who did and did not have Covid showed similar symptoms.

Unrefreshing sleep was the most common symptom in both groups.

“Our findings suggest that COVID-19 is no more likely than other acute infections to be associated with ME/CFS and that acute illnesses more broadly may be related to the chronic symptom burden of ME/CFS,” the researchers wrote.

The study had several limitations, including the possibility of false-positive test results and self-reported symptoms.

However, the study confirms growing evidence suggesting that long-Covid may be exaggerated or debunked.

A major study by researchers in the US, UK and Denmark has found that the risks of long-term Covid-19 have been “greatly exaggerated” and that the condition is too “broadly defined”.

Other experts say the condition is “indistinguishable” from other post-viral illnesses.

The new research was published Wednesday in JAMA Network Opened.