Daily News/Central Commissioner Zou Zhizhong reported that the new crown pneumonia epidemic continues to spread, and it is extremely necessary to pay attention to the long-term and chronic symptoms of the infected patients; if the patients diagnosed with COVID-19 still experience decreased mobility, fatigue, difficulty breathing, cough, and brain fog after recovery …and other sequelae, if the symptoms persist after three months of infection with the new coronary pneumonia, I am afraid it is “Long COVID-19”! Professor Su Guanbin, School of Medicine, China Medical University, together with the clinical medical teams of Annan Hospital and Guangtian Hospital, jointly published an academic paper titled “Long COVID-19 and Long-Chain Fatty Acids: Psychoneuroimmunology of Omega-3 Fatty Acids in Delayed Sequelae of COVID-19”. Published in Brain, Behavior, and Immunity, the fastest and most comprehensive national and international journal covering psychosomatic medicine related to the COVID-19 outbreak.
In the past two years, more than 3.8 million people have been diagnosed with COVID-19 in Taiwan. With the popularization of vaccines, the enhancement of natural immunity, and the advancement of drug treatment, the severe disease and fatality rate of the new crown have been significantly reduced. However, more and more medical research has begun to notice. A large number of patients have severe and long-term sequelae after the epidemic – referred to as “Long COVID-19”.
Under the definition of the United Nations World Health Organization (WHO), “Long COVID-19” means “complex syndrome that appears within 3 months after the diagnosis of new coronary pneumonia and persists for at least 2 months, which cannot be explained by other diagnoses” , including general fatigue, brain fog, shortness of breath, muscle pain, chest tightness, other symptoms such as abnormal smell and taste, diarrhea, joint swelling and pain, depression, inability to concentrate, forgetfulness, mental decline…etc. It may appear during the epidemic, or it may appear for the first time after recovery, often causing patients to be unable to resume normal life and work.
Since the diagnosis and etiology of the “long-term new crown” are still unclear, and there is no clinically proven effective treatment method, clinical care is urgently needed in response to the large increase in patients. Therefore, the School of Medicine of China Medical University Professor Su Guanbin and the research team of Yang Junbai, director of the Department of Neurology of Annan Hospital and Guangtian Hospital, explored the effects of omega-3 fatty acids on immunity, inflammation, oxidative stress and psychoneuroimmunity at different stages of SARS-CoV-2 infection. Clinical application of cytokines, alteration of the hypothalamic-pituitary-adrenal axis and modulation of neurotransmitter via lipids to improve mood and neurocognitive disorders. In addition, omega-3 fatty acids and their metabolites, including catabolism mediators (SPMs), have been shown to have the effect of accelerating the clearance of chronic inflammation and restoring tissue homeostasis, providing a new therapeutic prospect for chronic Covid-19.
The study, “Long Covid-19 and Long-Chain Fatty Acids: The Psychoneuroimmunology of Omega-3 Fatty Acids in the Delayed Sequelae of Covid-19,” uses data from animal studies, human clinical trials, and epidemiological studies to explain how omega-3 fatty acids may fight COVID-19 sequelae; these data highlight the important role omega-3 fatty acids play in neuropsychiatric complications associated with long-term symptoms of COVID-19.
Professor Su Guanbin, deputy director of Annan Hospital, pointed out that the mechanism of neuropsychiatric complications in the long-term symptoms of new coronary pneumonia (referred to as the new crown) is caused by a combination of factors. Annan Hospital has also specially set up a “Chang New Crown Special Outpatient Clinic” for this purpose. When the whole world is experiencing a major epidemic of new coronary pneumonia, even if there are no organic sequelae, many clinical symptoms of chronic and low-level inflammation can still be seen, fatigue , anxiety, depression, pain, etc. cases have increased, and many patients who have recovered from the epidemic are still suffering from various symptoms for a long time. Clinically, just after the second and third doses of the vaccine, many healthy people have long-term gastrointestinal diseases, cardiovascular diseases, chronic pain, and the recurrence of old injuries of neuro-skeletal joints that have been stable for many years, prolonging the inflammatory response. Symptoms persist for weeks to months.
Yang Junbai, director of Guangtian Hospital, said that Omega-3 fatty acids and their bioactive metabolites, in addition to repairing the brain by interacting with phospholipid metabolism to convert phospholipids into more anti-inflammatory metabolites, can also improve oxidative stress. and immune disorders; and by improving the renin-angiotensin-aldosterone system and coagulation function, the microvascular disorder caused by the new crown can also be improved; and the antidepressant effect of Omega-3 fatty acids can also improve the health, social, and economic factors. Symptoms of depression and anxiety caused by stress. Despite these exciting physiological effects of omega-3 fatty acids, more epidemiological and clinical trials are needed to verify in the future, so the information presented in this article can be used as a further study to explore the use of omega-3 fatty acids in “COVID-19.” “New Directions in Treatment and Prevention.
Professor Su Guanbin has been the associate editor of the internationally renowned journal “Brain, Behavior, and Immunity” since 2018. At the beginning of 2020, due to the severe epidemic of COVID-19 around the world, as associate editor, invited International scholars have published related papers on epidemic prevention, and nearly 100 papers have been published within half a year, leading the journal to become the fastest and most comprehensive international platform for reporting the COVID-19 epidemic-related physical and mental medicine among the first-class spiritual journals. Professor Su has also assembled scholars from China, South Korea, Poland, Australia and Japan, and has published ten research papers on mental health related to the epidemic so far, so that Taiwan has not only successfully protected the health of its Chinese people in terms of epidemic prevention, but also has a role in the international academic arena of psychiatry. occupy a place on the.