Genetic Risk Factors For Long COVID

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Today’s 30-Second Summary

If you don’t have time to read the whole email today, here are some key takeaways:

• Whether or not COVID turns into Long COVID depends on various factors, some of them modifiable, but some of them genetic.

  • Today’s main feature looks at new research (it was published earlier this month) showing what genetic factors are associated with a higher Long COVID risk.

• Being unable to easily participate in spoken conversations is not just an inconvenience; it’s also a [causal, fixable] risk factor for age-related cognitive decline.

  • Today’s sponsor, Hear.com, are offering the most cutting-edge dual-processing technology in hearing aids that isolate and separate speech from background noise, now with their latest most advanced device yet!

• Today’s featured book is all about anti-inflammatory recipes—a great way to cut down on immune dysfunction!

Read on to learn more about these things, or click here to visit our archive

A Word To The Wise

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Wildcard Wednesday

Genetic Risk Factors For Long COVID

Some people, after getting COVID, go on to have Long COVID. There are various contributing factors to this, including:

• Lifestyle factors that impact general disease-proneness

• Immune-specific factors such as being immunocompromised already

• Genetic factors

We looked at some modifiable factors to improve one’s disease-resistance, yesterday:

Stop Sabotaging Your Gut

And we’ve taken a more big-picture look previously:

Beyond Supplements: The Real Immune-Boosters!

Along with some more systemic issues:

Why Some People Get Sick More (And How To Not Be One Of Them)

But, for when the “don’t get COVID” ship has sailed, one of the big remaining deciding factors with regard to whether one gets Long COVID or not, is genetic

The Long COVID Genes

For those with their 23andMe genetic data to hand…

For those who don’t, then first: you might consider getting that! Here’s why:

Genetic Testing: Health Benefits & Methods

But also, all is not lost meanwhile:

The same study also found that individuals with genetic predispositions to chronic fatigue, depression, and fibromyalgia, as well as other phenotypes such as autoimmune conditions and cardiometabolic conditions, are at significantly higher risk of long-COVID than individuals without these conditions.

Good news, bad news

Another finding was that women and non-smokers were more likely to get Long COVID, than men and smokers, respectively.

Does that mean that those things are protective against Long COVID, which would be very counterintuitive in the case of smoking?

Well, yes and no; it depends on whether you count “less likely to get Long COVID because of being more likely to just die” as protective against Long COVID.

(Incidentally, estrogen is moderately immune-enhancing, while testosterone is moderately immune-suppressing, so the sex thing was not too surprising. It’s also at least contributory to why women get more autoimmune disorders, while men get more respiratory infections such as colds and the like)

Want to know more?

You can read the paper itself, here:

Multi-ancestry GWAS* of Long COVID identifies immune-related loci and etiological links to chronic fatigue syndrome, fibromyalgia and depression

*GWAS = Genome-Wide Association Study

Take care!

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Bonus (Sponsored) Recommendation

One-Minute Book Review

Meals That Heal: 100+ Everyday Anti-Inflammatory Recipes in 30 Minutes or Less: A Cookbook – by Dr. Carolyn Williams

Inflammation is implicated as a contributory or casual factor in almost all chronic diseases (and still exacerbates the ones in which it’s not directly implicated causally), so if there’s one area of health to focus on with one’s diet, then reducing inflammation is a top candidate.

This book sets about doing exactly that.

You may be wondering whether, per the book’s subtitle, they can really all be done in 30 minutes or under. The answer is: no, not unless you have a team of sous-chefs to do all the prep work for you, and line up everything mise-en-place style for when you start the clock. If you do have that team of sous-chefs working for you, then you can probably do most of them in under 30 minutes. If you don’t have that team, then budget about an hour in total, sometimes less, sometimes more, depending on the recipe.

The recipes themselves are mostly Mediterranean-inspired, though you might want to do a few swaps where the author has oddly recommended using seed oils instead of olive oil, or plant milk in place of where she has used dairy milk in a couple of “recipes” for smoothies. You might also want to be a little more generous with the seasonings, if you’re anything like this reviewer.

Bottom line: if you’re looking for an anti-inflammatory starter cookbook, you could do worse than this. You could probably do better, too, such as starting with The Inflammation Spectrum – by Dr. Will Cole.

Alternatively, click here if you want to check out Meals That Heal, and dive straight in!

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Wishing you a wonderful Wednesday full of wellness,

The 10almonds Team