Exercise intolerance often occurs in people with persistent long COVID: study

Slightly more than 35% of people with persistently long COVID-19 (also known as Post-Covid syndrome) reported that they experienced post-exertional malaise or exercise intolerance even in the second year after experiencing other important symptoms, according to a new one study. The findings also showed that 68% or two -thirds of the people who were diagnosed with Long Covid was struggling with fatigue, cognitive problems, shortness of breath and mental health problems such as anxiety, depression and sleep disorders.

“In particular, pain syndromes (chest pain, muscle pain or burning feet, joint pain, melagia and headache), confusion and dizziness were more often reported by patients with post-exertional malaise (apart from fatigue and exhaustion). Efforts MALAISE was very common (> 50%) In patients with persistent post-Covid syndrome who reported symptoms from all three dominant clusters (fatigue, neurocognitive disorders and breast symptoms), the researchers in the study published in the study published in PLOS Medicine January 23, 2025.

The researchers studied adults with long-term COVID-19 in southwest Germany who were between 18 and 65 years old, together with another 576 participants who did not have a long-term COVID-19. All 982 participants consulted doctors in university health centers to assess their cardiopulmonary and cognitive skills and to perform detailed laboratory tests. Among the study participants with long-term COVID-19 was 65% women.

“Most patients of working age with post-Covid syndrome did not recover from their illness in the second year. Patterns of reported symptoms were essentially comparable, non-specific and dominated by fatigue, exercise intolerance and cognitive complaints. Despite objective signs of cognitive deficits and reduced exercise capacity, there was no serious pathology in laboratory tests, and our findings do not support viral persistence, “the authors wrote in the study.

“A history of post-exertional malaise was accompanied by more serious symptoms and more objective signs of illness and could help stratify cases based on the severity of the disease,” the authors explain. “Fatigue, neurocognitive disorders and breast symptoms belonged to the dominant symptom clusters in the persistent post-Covid syndrome.”

“We have observed a large overlap between these three clusters, in which a substantial part of patients with persistent PCS (26.8%) reported moderate or severe symptoms in all three most important symptom clusters (S4 Fig.). The second largest overlap was the combination of fatigue and neurocognitive disorders (prevalence, 20.1%). One or more of these three most important symptom clusters met the vast majority (90.4%) of the participants with persistent post-Covid syndrome, “she added.

The team noted that obesity is an important risk factor. In their study group, most participants suffered from continuing long COVID-19 (30.2% compared to 12% in the control group).

According to the Centers for disease control and preventionPost-exertional malaise refers to an increasing severity of the symptoms after some form of physical or mental effort or tension that the patient could have tolerated without problems before. Usually, post-exertional malaise manifests itself for about 12 to 48 hours after some activity and worsens it. In some cases it can take days or more weeks.

Since the end of 2019, more than 750 million cases of COVID-19 and 6.8 million have been reported to COVID-related deaths worldwide. That number is still growing. At least 14% Of the people who tested positively in the United States on COVID-19, suffered or still suffers from long-term Covid symptoms.