The best thing I read this week: Scientists Offer a New Explanation for Long Covid

The best thing I read this week was once again an article from the New York Times. This time about something I am particularly interested in; long covid.

I received a push notification this morning from the New York Times that said that there was new promising research related to long covid. The article lays out a new body of research that has found long covid symptoms may be caused by a lack of serotonin.

More specifically, the decreased serotonin levels may be caused by remnants of the virus remaining in long covid patients' gut, which then causes blood clots that decrease the amount of serotonin circling through the body.

I am happy to hear that there are advancements being made. Long covid doesn’t get enough attention, but its sufferers are often debilitated by the symptoms. I have recently questioned if I suffer from long covid symptoms, as it shares a lot of symptoms with my diagnosis of seasonal affective disorder.

I think the author did a good job at boiling down the new science. Often journalists can be guilty of sensationalizing or misconstruing science to be more flashy. This author however gave a sober and clear-minded presentation of the timeline of the research, what went into it, and importantly, the pitfalls and potential limitations of the studies.

There was even a paragraph with an explicit caveat that more research needs to be done, that there is research with alternate theories, and that the studies were relatively small that demonstrated serotonin depletion.

I will continue monitoring long covid reporting and hope that good scientists continue to work towards solving its mysteries and that good journalists continue to report on it.