The author and SPIEGEL columnist Margarete Stokowski was also hit.
She writes that "there are broadly two groups: people who have long covid themselves or know someone who has it, and those who don't take it seriously".
Unfortunately, long-Covid patients are still confronted with prejudices from some of the doctors treating them, for example that their complaints are only imaginary or psychosomatic.
Hopefully that will soon be a thing of the past.
In a study, a team led by the renowned immunologist Akiko Iwasaki from Yale University in the USA found abnormal blood values and altered immune cells in long-Covid sufferers.
My colleague Marthe Ruddat writes that if further investigations support the results, these parameters could possibly be used as so-called biomarkers to confirm a long-Covid diagnosis - and also to develop new therapeutic approaches.
Among other things, the researchers discovered an increased number of exhausted immune cells in those affected;
they found evidence that herpes viruses had been reactivated, for example from an earlier illness of glandular fever.
Above all, however, the doctors were able to show that long-Covid sufferers had a significantly reduced level of the stress hormone cortisol in their blood compared to people from the control groups.
The too low cortisol level together with other values could possibly serve as a biomarker in the future.
Perhaps measuring cortisol levels will even make it possible to predict the severity of the disease.
Experts are now calling for drug studies that would have to be accompanied by an extensive biomarker program.
Study leader Iwasaki wrote on Twitter: "We hope these data will help those who are still skeptical to understand that Long Covid is real and has a biological basis."
Please take Long Covid seriously and take those suffering from it seriously!
Heartfelt
Your Veronica Hackenbroch
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