- A clinical trial for the anti-inflammatory drug Colchicine did not find the drug effective for Long COVID, according to a new study published in JAMA Internal Medicine. The randomized trial included 346 participants in India who took at least 0.5 milligrams once or twice per day, or a placebo, for 52 weeks. The trial included outcome measures of a six-minute walk test, inflammatory markers, and participant surveys; none of them showed differences between the treatment and placebo groups.
- A white paper from the Patient-Led Research Collaborative assessed Long COVID in India by interviewing clinicians and people with the disease across the country in both urban and rural locations. “Clinicians emphasize that Long COVID disproportionately affects India’s productive-age population, pushing many into financial precarity or reliance on family support,” the study’s authors wrote. They also found that people may fear telling others that they have Long COVID due to stigma. The authors made numerous recommendations to improve clinical care, public health education, and research for the disease.
- Researchers recently critiqued the study design and conclusions of a controversial 2024 study on myalgic encephalomyelitis (ME), which asserted that the disease was a result of altered “effort preference” and deconditioning. They wrote in a response in Nature Communications, “this interpretation risks reinforcing skepticism about the serious biological nature of [ME] and its hallmark of post-exertional malaise (PEM), as well as its potential misclassification as a mental health condition.” The authors of the letter also critiqued the study’s small sample size, outcome measures, analyses, and more aspects of its design. We reported on the study’s errors and potential bias in 2024, and published commentary from a community member calling for its retraction.
