Seeking the causes of post-Covid symptoms, researchers dust off data on college students with mononucleosis

Seeking causes of post-Covid symptoms in study of college kids - STAT Post-viral symptoms, such as persistent aches and fatigue after a bout of influenza, are a common but poorly understood phenomenon. Gideon Gil STAT

From 2014 to 2018, DePaul University psychologist Leonard Jason and colleagues collected personal information and blood samples from more than 4,500 healthy college students. They followed the group as some students contracted mononucleosis and a small proportion of those subsequently developed chronic fatigue syndrome — the debilitating disease also called myalgic encephalomyelitis, or ME/CFS, that is frequently triggered by an acute viral illness.

As Jason and his team were analyzing data earlier this year — seeking patterns that might explain why some students remained healthy and others got sick and stayed sick — reports began emerging of troubling medical complaints lasting for weeks and months following cases of Covid-19. Some of these post-Covid symptoms, including profound exhaustion after exertion and deficits in memory and concentration, resembled those experienced by ME/CFS patients.

The researchers came to a quick realization: The extensive baseline data and biological materials they had gathered from thousands of students created a unique opportunity to investigate risk factors for developing acute and prolonged illness after infection with the novel coronavirus.

“We will be able to compare the biological and behavioral data of young adults’ experiences prior to the Covid-19 epidemic and during the Covid-19 epidemic,” noted Jason during a recent conference presentation about the research.

This kind of prospective research design, in which people are enrolled before falling ill, allows researchers to make robust comparisons between those who return to health and those who never recover. But such studies are expensive and can take years, and they are especially challenging to put together amid a fast-moving pandemic — which helps explain why so little is known about the reasons some people develop long-lasting health problems after a viral illness. ...