Most people believe that COVID is a mild disease and easy to defeat. While that’s not far from the truth in most cases, scientific studies are revealing that some symptoms can linger even long after the patient’s initial recovery.
CNBC.com writes about a new UK study on the coronavirus and supported by Dr. Scott Gottlieb, who serves on the board of Pfizer, that hints at another long-term problem: brain tissue loss. The new study included the examination of brain imaging before and after COVID infection. The potential effect on the nervous system was specifically analyzed.
Brain tissue destruction could explain the loss of smell
We’re all well aware that many people who get infected with COVID-19 are experiencing loss of smell and taste, among other classical symptoms such as fever, joint pain, fatigue, or cough. Dr. Scott Gottlieb explained for CNBC’s “The News with Shepard Smith” that if brain tissue destruction due to COVID infection is real, it could explain why some patients are losing their sense of smell. However, more study is needed on the subject, as Gottlieb also said:
In short, the study suggests that there could be some long-term loss of brain tissue from Covid, and that would have some long-term consequences.
A well done study evaluating potential nervous system effects of COVID19 based on brain scans finds "significant, deleterious impact" on certain parts of the brain – perhaps pointing to a microvascular effect of virus on certain regions of nervous system? https://t.co/5EZJsflftG pic.twitter.com/JanwDV0Ui6
— Scott Gottlieb, MD (@ScottGottliebMD) June 17, 2021
There’s also some good news brought by the doctor:
You could compensate for that over time, so the symptoms of that may go away, but you’re never going to regain the tissue if, in fact, it’s being destroyed as a result of the virus.
The COVID pandemic is still pretty active across the world, judging by data published by worldometers.info. There are over 178.3 million infections throughout the world since the start of the pandemic, and the death toll surpasses 3.8 million souls.
