Metabolic

Common health problems increase the risk of severe COVID-19; Sudden food aversion in young children can be due to COVID

This illustration from December 11, 2021 shows vials labeled “VACCINE Coronavirus COVID-19”. REUTERS / Dado Ruvic / Illustration / Files

Register now for FREE unlimited access to Reuters.com

to register

December 22 (Reuters) – Below is a roundup of some recent studies on COVID-19. This includes research that warrants further studies to confirm the results and which has yet to be confirmed by peer review.

Common health problems increase the risk of severe COVID-19

Researchers have found that common illnesses that put people at risk for serious illnesses like diabetes, heart attacks, and stroke also put people at risk for critical illness and death from COVID-19.

Register now for FREE unlimited access to Reuters.com

to register

When the conditions – high blood sugar, high blood pressure, obesity, and high cholesterol – occur together, they are collectively referred to as metabolic syndrome. Using data on hospitalized COVID-19 patients in 26 countries, the researchers compared 5,069 adults with at least three of the disorders and 23,917 without metabolic syndrome. Those with metabolic syndrome had significantly increased chances of developing a potentially fatal lung disease called acute respiratory distress syndrome (ARDS) and death, the researchers reported on JAMA Network Open Wednesday. “With each metabolic syndrome criterion added 1 to 4 criteria, the risk of ARDS increased significantly,” regardless of age, gender, race, ethnicity and other diseases, the researchers said.

“If you have high cholesterol, high blood pressure, mild obesity, and prediabetes or diabetes and are hospitalized with COVID-19, you have a 1 in 4 chance of developing ARDS, which is significant,” said study director Dr. Joshua Denson of Tulane University School of Medicine in a statement. Metabolic syndrome was significantly more common in US hospitals (18.8%) than in other countries (8%), leading the researchers to believe that one reason the United States was in COVID-19 Deaths are leading the world, their high metabolic rates could be syndrome, obesity and diabetes.

Sudden food aversion in young children can be an indicator of COVID-19

In young children, an indication of a diagnosis of COVID-19 may be a sudden complete or almost complete abstinence from solid foods due to changes in the child’s sense of smell and taste, doctors in California suggest.

In a report published Tuesday in Pediatrics, they describe two young children, both younger than 18 months, who suddenly developed an aversion to solid foods by the time they were diagnosed with COVID-19. After eating, they gagged or spit out the food immediately afterwards. Simultaneously with the food aversion, a toddler also became acutely sensitive to the smell of fragrant products, another sign of an impaired sense of smell. Six to eight months after diagnosis, both toddlers had begun to tolerate solid foods, but neither had fully resumed their initial intake.

“This delayed and variable clinical course in our patients is in line with recent studies in adults” showing that COVID-19-related problems with smell and taste “can increase and decrease and a third of patients can have persistent symptoms” so the doctors said. They said they hope to see more data from other pediatricians to supplement their findings. However, based on their limited data, they said food aversion in young, preverbal children “should be a trigger to test for the presence of SARS-CoV-2 infection”.

Antibody drugs could harm some COVID-19 patients

The effectiveness and safety of the monoclonal antibody drug Bamlanivimab from Eli Lilly and Co (LLY.N) against COVID-19 pneumonia may differ depending on whether the patient’s immune system is already producing its own antibodies, a new analysis suggests.

The researchers analyzed data from a randomized study in which 163 hospitalized COVID-19 patients received bamlanivimab. About half of these patients did not have their own antibodies to the virus at the start of the study, and these patients seem to have recovered more quickly. However, in patients who already had their own antibodies, bamlanivimab was associated with a higher risk of death, organ failure or serious side effects compared to a placebo, the researchers reported in the Annals of Internal Medicine on Monday.

Re-analyzes of study data are less reliable than if the study were primarily designed to answer the question. Still, this analysis delivers “two main messages,” said Dr. Jens Lundgren from the University of Copenhagen. Monoclonal antibodies can be helpful in hospitalized COVID-19 patients without their own antibodies, but they “can be harmful” if the patient’s immune system reacts, Lundgren said. The U.S. Food and Drug Administration has granted emergency approval to several monoclonal antibodies that neutralize SARS-CoV-2, including bamlanivimab, which is co-administered with Lilly’s etesevimab.

Click for a Reuters graphic on Vaccines in Development.

Register now for FREE unlimited access to Reuters.com

to register

Reporting by Nancy Lapid and Megan Brooks; Editing by Bill Berkrot

Our Standards: The Thomson Reuters Trust Principles.

Related Articles