- Two recent studies state that Long COVID is an occupational disease. The first, a Catalan study of over 2,000 workers, found that those with higher-risk occupations had a 44% higher likelihood of developing Long COVID, compared to people with lower-risk jobs. The higher-risk occupations included healthcare professionals, teachers, retail workers, transport workers, and others. A second study from the U.K. of over 4,000 healthcare workers found that the disease affected different ethnicities, sexes, and occupational roles in different ways. Both studies found that nearly a quarter of workers in their cohorts developed Long COVID.
- Vanderbilt researchers are conducting an immune profiling study on people with Long COVID and postural orthostatic tachycardia syndrome (POTS). In the cross-sectional study, researchers are comparing three inflammatory markers in 150 people with POTS, Long COVID, and those with a history of SARS-C0V-2 infections who did not develop long-term symptoms. The researchers are evaluating a hypothesis that “post-COVID-19 POTS is caused by reduced [parasympathetic] activity, which in turn, contributes to persistent inflammation [and] orthostatic intolerance.” Contact: Marwa Mohamed, marwa.mohamed@vumc.org.
- A new phase two remote clinical trial was recently announced for myalgic encephalomyelitis (ME). The study will assess low-dose naltrexone (LDN), a drug that is also being studied for Long COVID. The blinded study will recruit 75 participants from anywhere in the U.S. to trial the drug, testing it at four different doses between 1.5 and 6 milligrams for ten months. The trial is set to start recruiting in April 2026. Contact: Jared Younger, younger@uab.edu.
