- Most people recover fully from COVID-19, but millions experience lingering ailments with long COVID or post-COVID conditions.
- Long COVID conditions include fatigue, chest pain, heart dysfunction, and increased risk of heart disease.
- A recent study found that hyperbaric oxygen therapy (HBOT) may help the hearts of people with long COVID regain the ability to contract properly.
- The study’s authors feel that all long COVID patients may benefit from global longitudinal strain (GLS) assessment and, potentially, oxygen therapy.
Long COVID, or post-COVID conditions, refers to a wide range of new or recurrent health problems people may experience after infection with SARS-CoV-2, the virus that causes COVID-19.
A host of persistent symptoms includes abnormal heartbeats and a heightened risk of developing cardiovascular dysfunction.
A team of researchers ran a small study analyzing how inhaling highly pressurized, pure oxygen affects the heart function of long COVID patients.
They found that hyperbaric oxygen therapy may help the heart improve cardiovascular contractions in this population.
Professor Marina Leitman, MD, of the Sackler School of Medicine at Tel Aviv University and Shamir Medical Center, Be’er Ya’akov, Israel, who led this study, presented her team’s findings in May 2023 at EACVI 2023, a conference held by the European Society of Cardiology (ESC), though they have not yet been peer-reviewed.
The study’s authors assessed global longitudinal strain (GLS), a sensitive but uncommon measure of cardiac function.
Medical News Today spoke about GLS with Dr. Jayne Morgan, a cardiologist and clinical director of the COVID Task Force at the Piedmont Healthcare Corporation in Atlanta, Georgia, who was not involved in the present study.
“GLS is a measure of cardiac function that can guide a physician’s expectations of the clinical course in patients who may have normal left ventricular function yet remain symptomatic. An abnormal GLS value can be associated with an…
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