David Cutler, Professor of Applied Economics at Harvard University, has spent his career assessing the economics of healthcare. Over the past four years he has applied his skills to assessing the cost of Covid, and subsequently Long Covid, on the U.S. economy. His original analysis, published in JAMA in 2022, suggested that Long Covid would cost the U.S. economy $2.6 trillion, but with the chronic condition proving more prevalent and prolonged than originally estimated, those figures were revised to a massive $3.7 trillion.

In this week’s episode Cutler explains these costs and their implications. We discuss what has been included in projecting these staggering costs, and what needs to be done, on governmental and clinical levels, to manage these costs and the condition. Whilst the findings may seem bleak, it is Cutler’s hope that in highlighting the enormity of the problem, policymakers may see the urgent need to address it.

Living with Long Covid? How was your week?

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Dr Nancy Klimas, Director of the Institute for Neuro-Immune Medicine, Nova Southeastern University, is an immunologist internationally renowned for her work in multi-symptom illnesses. In this week’s episode she explains her work, from HIV through ME/CFS and Gulf War Syndrome, that has led to her having insight and an amazing team to channel efforts into Long Covid research and treatment.

In an insightful overview she describes her work in understanding the mechanisms (viral persistence, viral reactivation), impacts of (MCAS, cell dysfunction, T-cell dysregulation) and potential alleviation of the disease. She has been involved in studies looking at clinical therapeutics such as LDN and has seen remarkable results with the use of MABs which she is hoping to replicate in a larger clinical trial in the coming weeks.

Living with Long Covid? How was your week?

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Dr Rob Wüst, Assistant Professor in the Faculty of Movement and Behaviour Sciences, is an expert cardiac and skeletal muscle metabolism and mitochondrial function. He and the team at Vrije Universiteit, Amsterdam, published the “PEM study” in Nature Communications, which investigated the muscular changes in Long Covid patients who experience post-exertional malaise (PEM), or “the worsening of fatigue- and pain-related symptoms after acute mental or physical exercise”.

In this week’s episode Wüst talks us through the key findings of their study, including the muscular changes, mitochondrial dysfunction and microclots that were present in the Long Covid patients compared to their control group. He discusses the effects of bedrest on the human body and how exercise is usually beneficial for overall health, but highlights what was revealed through blood tests and muscle biopsies in their study – that Long Covid patients have limited exercise capacity with lower mitochondrial function and our rehabilitation needs to be handled with this unique understanding.

Living with Long Covid? How was your week?

Website - https://www.tlcsessions.net/
Twitter - @SessionsTlc https://twitter.com/sessionstlc
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