Coronavirus could age the brain by 10 years or cause IQ to fall | Hacker News Reader

Coronavirus could age the brain by 10 years or cause IQ to fall

thetimes.co.uk

35 pointsredm15 comments

I'll ask the question people are going to inevitably bring up: Is this common for other viral illnesses like influenza? Or is this specific to covid? Another question I have is, does covid affect the brain directly, or indirectly (i.e. through widespread inflammation) ? I have suspicions to the answers to these questions, just from browsing some of the recent literature, but I'm not at all an expert, so I just wanted to hear others thoughts.

I had an extremely bad flu once. Set me back for about 2 weeks. I do believe that it reduced my intelligence. Always hard to say with this stuff, but I was in university and the difficulty level seemed to take a significant step up after I recovered... but math is hard! Had a significant concussion about a decade later, and experienced a similar drop in apparent intelligence and motivation -- which reinforces my belief that the impact was real (with the concussion, I experienced some tangible recovery as well).

But... just because this can happen as a result of an extreme flu, doesn't mean that we should take these risks lightly just because they're familiar. I think I'd be a better person, and a more productive member of society, without those injuries.

Did the drop vanish after a while or do you think the loss is permanent?

I think both incidents resulted in a permanent loss, but again, it's really hard to say for sure (every day is an anecdote). With the concussion, I noticed tangible improvement over the course of several months (in the first week, trying to think would quickly induce headaches). Within a month of the flu; within a year of the concussion, I still felt foggier than before, and the fog stopped noticeably lifting.

Yes, Covid-19 can infect brain cells directly and it can also cause strokes, heart attacks and neurological issues.https://www.nature.com/articles/d41586-020-02599-5

And Yes, influenza can too. H5N1 does too (bird flu): https://www.jneurosci.org/content/38/12/3060

Inflammation also causes damage.

Yes, people in intensive care or on ventilator are very close to dying, so it could absolutely affect the body and brain as described.

Thing is, that very few with Corona get to such a serious condition fortunately, so this applies to a very limited number of people.

Cancer patients who undergo chemo/radiation treatment often talk about "Chemo brain." I've experienced it, but determining causality is tough. Is it due to the stress of having cancer and all that entails? Is it due to the treatment itself?

I have noticed that I'm not as cognitively sharp as I was prior to chemo, but I've also aged 15 years as well.

It follows that lung damage (which can be, ironically, caused by breathing more than 50% oxygen) might lead to lower oxygen levels.

"The brain requires a constant supply of glucose and oxygen. However, if you have a chronic lung disease such as emphysema, pulmonary fibrosis or COPD, having enough blood oxygen can be challenging.... The brain uses about 25 percent of your oxygen intake, so avoiding low oxygen and brain damage is important.... When your blood oxygen falls below a certain level, the result is called hypoxemia. The symptoms of hypoxemia include extreme shortness of breath, headache, confusion and restlessness." - https://lunginstitute.com/blog/oxygen-and-brain-damage/

"The coronavirus damages both the wall and lining cells of the alveolus as well as the capillaries. The debris that accumulates because of all of that damage lines the wall of the alveolus the same way paint would cover a wall...." - https://health.clevelandclinic.org/heres-the-damage-coronavi...

For people wanting to read the source (aka study): [1]

[1] https://www.medrxiv.org/content/10.1101/2020.10.20.20215863v...

Off topic, but is this a good news source? I know there is a popular uk news service that is mostly editorial and I always forget which

The Times is a News Corp paper so personally I don't trust or read it.

Most of the news here in the UK is abysmal but the worst big papers are The Sun and The Daily Mail (probably the one you were thinking of).

as far as I understand, if the brain doesnt't get enough oxigen it will be damaged and loose some functions

Covid Toes, multi system organ damage, 10 year brain aging, evasion of the immune system....the media is really having the field day with this.

Don't forget the Kawasaki epidemic among children...that occurred at the same time this happens every year normally.

Right! For some reason the news media can put anything on blast to the entire world. Even stuff that isn't peer reviewed and no legit medical establishment would use to determine treatments or diagnosis.

Even crystal and chakra 'science' can find somewhere to get published.

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