[tasty_freeze]

The title is a lot more exciting than what is actually being claimed. They say that malfunctioning mitochondria are to blame ... but there is no insight into why the mitochondria are malfunctioning.

My wife, a formerly energetic, outgoing, type A person, has been suffering from ME/CFS for 20 years. Long COVID symptoms are highly similar to ME/CFS problems, and the hope has been that the long-underfunded ME/CFS research would benefit from the research money that has come with COVID. Thus, I felt let down when I read the linked blurb.

[JohnMakin]

It is exciting. Before this, we could only posit wild guesses as to the physical mechanism behind long COVID (if there was one at all). In the first year or two, scientists even doubted whether it was real at all. When you know the physical mechanism, it allows you to figure out a way to treat it.

[lostindetails]

I remember this being shown last year already...

Found the link: https://www.nih.gov/news-events/nih-research-matters/sars-co...

AFAIK they even attributed the organ failures to the failures in mitocondrial energy production.

[megous]

The mitochondrial damage idea was around for at least 2 years already, maybe more...

[JohnMakin]

You know what a hypothesis is right?

[francisofascii]

Right, the mitochondrial dysfunction has known for a while. But is not not the cause, it is the symptom. Many argue the cause is viral persistence, causing a continual immune response causing the body to be dysregulated and mitochondrial dysfunction. Another idea is endothelial damage that simply takes time to be repaired and that sometimes can be made worse by over taxing your body.

[megous]

https://www.nature.com/articles/s41467-023-44432-3