If only losing weight were so easy… hopefully more medical advances are made in that realm too, because yes, it would help a lot of folks health-wise.
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Except that it’s more nurture than nature. The US is the 12th most overweight country in the world, right up their with Kuwait and Jordan, and #1 in the western world; US is ~24 spots higher than the UK. Switzerland has ~half of the obesity of the US.
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That means nothing in the nurture vs nature world since genetics and gut biome can play a big part, but rather than derail this thread, folks can google the many facets that can be involved with attempted weight loss if they are curious. Overeating and under exercising is just one aspect.
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It’s a little bit of both. Children born to obese mothers have a genetic (epigenetic) predisposition to be overweight. Pretty scary implications both on an individual and societal level.
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My DH and D1 took a trip to Scandinavia together. He said they basically saw NO obese people and very very few overweight people.
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We were just in Norway and we noticed this also. However, I’ve never seen more cigarette smoking in my life.
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Were there any vaccines available before December 2020?
Here’s what the study used (from the link):
The study looked at the health of people who were discharged from 39 British hospitals with COVID-19 between March 2020 and April 2021, then assessed the recovery of 807 of them five months and one year later.
I should have put April 2021 in that post (too late to edit it to fix it), but I still don’t see how many would have been fully vaccinated and hospitalized at that point.
Here is an article on the latest CDC data on the percentages of people having antibodies produced from Covid infections based on blood drawn for medical purposes. It is showing that almost 60% of all Americans and 75% of all children have Covid antibodies as of February 2022. About 1/3 of the most vulnerable age group (65 and older) were showing Covid antibodies.
This may be part of the reason (along with at home testing being much more prevalent and positive test results not being reported) that the latest Covid wave has not hit the US as hard as other parts of the world. Hospitalizations and Deaths are still near pandemic low points (and still mostly unvaccinated people) and Long Covid sufferers are still not something I am personally seeing amongst my own vaccinated friend and family group. It feels weird to say this, but I expect my family will have a mostly normal travel filled summer.
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Would newly developed type 2 diabetes after COVID-19 be a type of long COVID? Of course, it is not obvious whether an individual newly developed or noticed type 2 diabetes is due to COVID-19 or is just coincidental, but a rather large study indicates that having COVID-19 increases the risk of that happening: Diabetes risk rises after COVID, massive study finds .
Because an individual case of newly developed or noticed type 2 diabetes would obviously be the result of COVID-19, it may be unnoticed as a long term effect of COVID-19 in individual cases, even though an association exists in large populations. But the latter does suggest that longer term effects of COVID-19 may not be obviously visible.
I believe that we may have another phenomenon that is partly affecting that data. I had a family member get diagnosed with Type 2 diabetes in October 2021 which is an affliction that is especially prevalent in African-American families like mine.
That family member had not had a medical checkup in 2 1/2 years mainly due to the pandemic. In December 2021, that family member tested positive for Covid. If that family member had just skipped that October appointment, his Covid infection in December may have been labeled as an initiator of his Type 2 diabetes when he has been on the cusp of diabetes for a few years (pre-diabetic diagnosed about 5 years before Type 2 diagnosis). I believe that a lot of people have skipped medical assessments during the pandemic which is causing a delayed diagnosis of many ailments.
But I personally do not consider something like Type 2 diabetes as a Long Covid ailment for those diagnosed within a year of having Covid.
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Another consideration is that gaining the “Covid-19” (ie weight gain over the last couple years) can lead to a T2D diagnosis. So while coincident with possibly contracting the virus, it’s definitely associated with the pandemic.
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I lost weight during the pandemic because I had more time to concentrate on fitness.
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For another point of anecdata, my bff’s husband experienced a worsening of his Type 2 diabetes after ending up in the hospital with Covid (omicron, in Jan/Feb 2022). He was diagnosed over a decade ago with T2, but was able to control it with medication, diet, and exercise. After Covid, he’s now on insulin, and will be for the foreseeable future. So if a bout of Covid could worsen existing diabetes, it stands to reason it could cause it (or perhaps trigger it in individuals on the cusp).
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FWIW, when they do these studies they compare the numbers against the “average” numbers of a medical event happening in a given year. The study shows that getting Type 2 post Covid is higher than average - hence - the correlation with Covid.
Absolutely some would have been diagnosed anyway and it can be impossible to pinpoint who was who, so you could be correct with your relative. That anecdote doesn’t negate the large study data.
They do the same thing with the studies on vaccine side effects. Did the vaccine cause the stroke (for one example) or was it a coincidence? From what I’ve seen on these, the numbers are not significantly different than what could have happened without the vaccine. It may happen here or there and I understand someone having a reluctance to future vaccines because of the timing, but again, the anecdote doesn’t negate the data.
What is correlated with causing strokes and heart issues is having Covid. My medical guy is currently on a neurology rotation and told us last night that most of the strokes he is seeing now are post Covid, but that’s not a new issue for him. It’s been around since the beginning of the pandemic and is part of why they unofficially consider Covid a blood clotting disorder that also affects the lungs. Wherever those blood clots get stuck (lungs, heart, kidneys, brain, etc) there can be problems. That’s known at this point, and problems can be seen a few months post Covid. Why there’s a correlation with Type II Diabetes I’m not sure they know yet. I’ve seen the headlines, but haven’t read the articles.
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I’m curious, do they suspect a link between these patients with hepatitis and having had Covid? I hope they figure out what’s going on here.
I suspect we are going to continue seeing a large increase in a variety of illnesses as a result of people contracting Covid. The disease attacks whatever is weak and makes people vulnerable to other things.
I am sure there is already a lot of evidence showing that the original form of Covid has had the most devastating long term health effect on people overall, but I haven’t been keeping up with things as much because I was burned out on information overload.
So my stepmom, who had Covid in Dec 2020 and had her vision destroyed by it, has decided she will not get any more vaccines. She had her initial vaxxes and the first booster. Then she spent a week with my antivaxx brother and he convinced her not to get another booster. She now says the pharmaceutical companies are just trying to profit, the vaccine doesn’t stop people from getting Covid (right, but it keeps you from dying most of the time), that we don’t know what’s in the vaccines, etc…. I am so angry that I want to punch my brother.
Meanwhile, I know plenty of people still grappling with the effects of having had Covid. My friend who had Covid in March 2021 still has zero sense of smell or taste. Her only Covid symptom was loss of smell. My friend’s husband who ended up getting a liver transplant after Covid is still very unwell and now needs a kidney transplant, in addition to other issues. Even my kid’s fully vaxxed and boosted SO, who got Covid in March (presumably omicron), is still feeling a bit short of breath and is tired in the evenings. He’s a fit and healthy 20 something.
I’m getting a booster tomorrow. Thank goodness.
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Again, I said “personally” in my comment. Around 2/3’s of all adults over 60 years old in my family are type 2 diabetics (and both of my parents are type 2 diabetics). My Father was younger than I currently am when he was diagnosed and my Mother was not far behind. A future possible Covid diagnosis would not in my estimation be the cause of my having Type 2 diabetes in the future.
For my wife, it is even worse. She is already pre-diabetic despite having a BMI of 21.8 and every single direct relative on her father’s side of the family over the age of 50 has been diagnosed as a Type 2 diabetic. So Type 2 diabetes has been on our radars for a long time. I personally do not consider Type 2 diabetes a Long Covid ailment, since so many in my family have been dealing with this ailment long before Covid-19 existed and will most likely continue to do so.
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No one knows a definite etiology. Many have adenovirus, so that is postulated, but adenovirus has always been around and not caused this degree of severity. So is it a new strain of adenovirus? Maybe. But what’s new is also SARS2, which is known to cause severe liver disease. No one is suggesting SARS is causing the current hepatitis publicly.
ETA there is a reference here
Me too! The first few months especially DH and I went for long walks several times a week.
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RE: your mother and brother
I listened to a wonderful talk by Dr. Peter Hotez about COVID-19 science vs antiscience.
The links to the talks are often available online a few days later - if I see it I will forward to you. Very interesting. Everything from social media, new outlets, the formation of the antivaxx movement before SARS2 and it’s evolvement with the current infection, politics. He even mentioned how a lot of misinformation comes from Russia with the intent to divide the US.
An interesting and sad slide, the only one I remembered to take a picture of
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