Middle-aged women 'worst affected by long Covid', studies find

Middle-aged women experience the most severe, long-lasting symptoms after being treated in hospital for COVID-19, two UK studies suggest.

Five months on, 70% of patients studied were still affected by everything from anxiety to breathlessness, fatigue, muscle pain and "brain fog".

But the researchers say there is no obvious link with how ill people originally became.

How women's bodies fight off illness could explain their poorer recovery.

The larger study - led by the University of Leicester - which is yet to be peer-reviewed, followed up more than 1,000 patients who had been admitted to hospital with Covid-19 in the UK last year. It found that up to 70% had not fully recovered, an average of five months after leaving hospital, with women most affected.

A separate smaller pre-print study, led by University of Glasgow, found women under 50 were seven times more likely to be more breathless, and twice as likely to report worse fatigue than men of the same age who had had the illness, seven months after hospital treatment.

Read full story

Source: BBC News, 25 March 2021