Buzz
While 'long COVID' is widely known, it’s not the only condition with lingering effects. Respiratory infections like colds, flu, and pneumonia can also lead to prolonged symptoms, creating their own 'long' versions.
If you’ve ever experienced a persistent cough or lingering body aches after recovering from a cold or flu, this might not surprise you. However, this phenomenon has only recently gained scientific attention. As researchers delve into long COVID, they’re uncovering similar patterns in other illnesses.
What symptoms are associated with long colds and long flu?
A recent study on long COVID compared individuals who had contracted COVID with those who had other respiratory infections, such as colds, and tested negative for COVID. The goal was to understand how long COVID differs from these other conditions.
The research analyzed surveys from people in the United Kingdom in January 2021, a time when COVID had been spreading but before most participants had been vaccinated. To differentiate long COVID from other post-infection conditions, they included data on various infections, including COVID cases.
The term 'long cold' originated from the press release for this study, but the non-COVID infections studied weren’t limited to colds. They encompassed conditions like pneumonia, flu, bronchitis, tonsillitis, pharyngitis, ear infections, and other respiratory infections unrelated to SARS-CoV-2. This means the study included everything from mild colds to severe cases like pneumonia, making it a broad and diverse group.
The findings revealed that both COVID and other respiratory infections could lead to similar prolonged symptoms in the four to 12 weeks following the initial illness. (This was the timeframe studied, though symptoms might persist longer). Both long COVID and 'long colds' shared symptoms such as:
Muscle and joint pain
Sleep disturbances
Difficulty focusing or memory issues
Lightheadedness and dizziness
Persistent coughing
Individuals with long COVID were more prone to experiencing a loss of smell or taste, which was less common with other respiratory infections. They also frequently reported issues with lightheadedness and dizziness.
Is 'long cold' and 'long flu' a real phenomenon?
While 'long cold' and 'long flu' are not yet widely recognized terms, the concept of symptoms persisting after an infection is not new. A 2022 study described post-infection syndromes as a 'significant blind spot in medicine.' It’s known that conditions like myalgic encephalomyelitis or chronic fatigue syndrome (ME/CFS) can be triggered by infections, and there’s hope that long COVID research could also help those with ME/CFS.
However, ME/CFS diagnoses typically involve severe symptoms. The focus on 'long COVID' as a distinct syndrome has brought attention to lingering symptoms following mild or moderate infections, even when the symptoms themselves aren’t severe but persist over time.
This increased focus on long COVID led researchers in the recent Lancet study to investigate symptoms following other infections to differentiate them from long COVID. They discovered many similarities, suggesting that 'long colds' and other prolonged conditions like 'long flu' or 'long pneumonia' have been overlooked for some time.
The new study comparing long COVID to other syndromes has notable limitations. Diagnoses were primarily self-reported, and individuals with COVID who received false-negative test results were categorized under 'other' infections. (Some critics argue that equating 'long COVID' with 'long colds' might downplay the severity of long COVID experiences. While I disagree with this perspective, it’s crucial to acknowledge that non-COVID infections and their lingering symptoms aren’t always mild.)
Nevertheless, we’re gaining insights into how the body responds post-infection, an area that warrants further research. As the authors of the recent study state:
A lack of awareness about the long-term effects of other acute respiratory infections—or even the absence of a unifying term like 'long COVID'—likely leads to underreporting.
If this holds true, simply naming 'long colds' is a significant step toward better understanding and addressing them.
