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Poor doctor Sithole. What a name!
bfl
Fitness trackers provide conclusions related to COVID-19!
By Ask the Doctors • August 4, 2021
Dear Doctor: I had a bad case of COVID-19 last spring. It took a while, but I’m mostly OK now. The only thing is, the numbers on my Fitbit aren’t as good as they used to be, especially my heart rate. Is that because of COVID? How long until I’m back to normal?
Dear Reader: It didn’t take long for fitness trackers to evolve from their original purpose. They began as mechanical devices designed to collect basic information, like the number of steps taken and distance traveled throughout the day. Thanks to advances in tech, they quickly progressed to electronic data-collection systems.
Depending on the specific device you’re using, a fitness tracker can keep tabs on variables like distance, speed, direction and duration of movement, and even changes in elevation of the terrain. Through skin contact with an array of sensors, these devices can deliver information about a person’s heart rate while they’re active and while they’re at rest, and specifics about their heart rhythms.
Some are even equipped with sensors and software that the manufacturers say can flag potential heart issues.
A study we wrote about last year found that subtle changes in health data collected by fitness trackers were surprisingly reliable predictors that someone was about to come down with the flu.
The same predictive ability proved true with people who became ill with COVID-19.
Now, sensors and algorithms are offering up conclusions related to long-haul COVID. As many of you doubtless know, that’s the name for the array of ongoing symptoms that some people experience for weeks, and sometimes months, after they have recovered from the initial infection.
One of the authors of that flu study, along with other researchers in California and Michigan, has examined the fitness tracker data of 234 people who had tested positive for the coronavirus that causes COVID-19. The group they followed had been moderately to severely ill. For at least three months after an initial diagnosis, the researchers saw persistent physiological changes, including an elevated heart rate.
Because fitness trackers reveal patterns of movement, the researchers were able to identify changes to the individuals’ behavior, as well. This included a decrease in distance traveled each day and an increase in time spent sleeping.
Although similar changes were seen in a group of people who had non-COVID-19 respiratory illnesses, they resolved far more quickly.
COVID-19 has a wide range of effects. This is proving to be true of long-haul COVID as well. For people in the study who were ill with COVID-19, it took an average of 79 days for their resting heart rates to return to what they had been before they became sick.
Individuals whose illness was due to something other than COVID-19 saw their heart rates returned to normal just four days after their illness ended. For 14% of the COVID-19 group, a heart rate that was five beats faster than prior to their illness persisted for more than four months. We wish we had a better answer, but there’s no way to predict how long the after-effects of COVID-19 will last.
(Send your questions to askthedoctors@mednet.ucla.edu, or write: Ask the Doctors, c/o UCLA Health Sciences Media Relations, 10880 Wilshire Blvd., Suite 1450, Los Angeles, CA, 90024. Owing to the volume of mail, personal replies cannot be provided.)
https://connect.uclahealth.org/2021/08/04/fitness-trackers-provide-conclusions-related-to-covid-19/
Stopped reading when they called PCR test “ the gold standard for diagnosing COVID”, since it can’t tell Covid 19 from regular flu bug. Gold standard my ass. If I can’t believe that in the article, I can’t believe anything else in the article.
Wait, what?
BTW, went to a HUGE funeral today at a church. VERY FEW MASKS, hugs, handshakes. It's that way at my church EVERY SERVICE. Nobody died from the Chinese-Engineered Common Cold Virus, either. And my church NEVER CLOSED. FAITH OVER FEAR.
Cannabis use linked to worse COVID-19 outcomes
Stephanie Soucheray, MA June 21, 2024
COVID-19 pot smoking
Daria Kulkova/iStock
Cannabis use is linked to an increased risk of more serious COVID-19 outcomes, including hospitalization and intensive care unit (ICU) admission—similar to risks from tobacco use—according to a study today in JAMA Network Open from researchers at the Washington University School of Medicine in St. Louis.
As cannabis use becomes legal in many states and is used for medical purposes, the drug has developed somewhat of a “health halo,” with many Americans considering it healthier than tobacco or alcohol.
“What we found is that cannabis use is not harmless in the context of COVID-19. People who reported yes to current cannabis use, at any frequency, were more likely to require hospitalization and intensive care than those who did not use cannabis,” said senior study author Li-Shiun Chen, MD, MPH, ScD, in a press release from Washington University School of Medicine.
The study, based on outcomes among 72,501 people seen for COVID-19 at centers in a major Midwestern healthcare system during the first 2 years of the pandemic, offers an important take on the risks associated with cannabis use, especially in comparison to tobacco use.
Among the study participants, 51,006 (70.4%) needed hospitalization, 4,725 (6.5%) required an ICU visit, and 2,717 (3.7%) died. The average age was 48.9 years, 59.7% were female and 40.3% male, 27.6% were Black, and 69.6% were White.
In total, 68.8% had at least one comorbidity that was identified as potentially affecting COVID-19 outcomes, including obesity, diabetes, and heart disease.
The authors found that, of the study participants, 13.4% currently smoked; 24.4% formerly smoked; and 9.7% reported current use of cannabis.