Covid, intestinal disorders persist after 5 months: Italian study

Long Covid does not spare the intestines. Five months after Sars-CoV-2 infection, several patients may still present with gastrointestinal disorders which, however, do not appear serious and tend to subside in the long term. Among the most common aftermaths diarrhea and asthenia, an ‘extraintestinal’ symptom, but related to the effects of the virus on the system. This is what emerges from a study conducted by the Milan Polyclinic on 164 patients, published in ‘Neurogastroenterology and Motility’ and selected as an oral communication for ‘Digestive Disease Week’, the largest US gastroenterological congress, reports a note. Authors of the work Maurizio Vecchi, full professor and director of the Postgraduate School of Digestive System Diseases of the State University of Milan, and Guido Basilisco of the Gastroenterology and Endoscopy Operational Unit of the Polyclinic. “The study – the experts highlight – on the one hand reassures patients suffering from Covid-19 in the sense that the long-term gastrointestinal effects are of mild severity, on the other hand it underlines the possibility that both intestinal and extraintestinal manifestations may persist even for months away “. Already some findings in the literature – recalls the note – revealed since 2020 how the coronavirus Sars-CoV-2 could also affect the gastrointestinal tract, with at least 30% of patients with diarrhea or gastroenterological symptoms in the acute phase of illness. Less known was the trend over time of these symptoms, an important aspect given that often, after bacterial or viral infections, some of these disorders tend to become chronic even for years, sometimes accompanied by extraintestinal symptoms (back pain, head, weakness) not explained by a specific organic alteration, defined as ‘somatoforms’. This trend characterizes some functional syndromes such as irritable colon or so-called ‘post-infectious’ dyspepsia. “After a time interval of 5 months, we analyzed the patients admitted to our hospital for acute Covid-19 infection – explains Basilico – for to understand if the gastrointestinal symptoms that characterize functional gastrointestinal diseases such as irritable bowel, and somatoform symptoms such as fatigue / asthenia, may be present months after infection. We studied 164 patients 5 months after acute Covid infection. The results were compared with those of healthy subjects and negative for Covid-19 “.” The data – summarizes the specialist – show that gastroenterological symptoms are present at a distance from the infection, albeit in a very mild form; the most frequent symptom is diarrhea . Asthenia is much more frequent among the extraintestinal symptoms, which reaches values ​​of 40% among those affected by Covid-19. The results suggest, in line with the most recent literature, that both the symptoms that characterize functional gastrointestinal diseases and the somatoform symptoms may have a common biological origin “.” Our research studied a topic of considerable interest, namely the follow-up -long-term up of patients with acute Covid-19 infection who in 30-40% of cases had gastrointestinal problems, especially diarrhea – comments Vecchi – Other studies had also shown cases of pancreatitis, clinically not always evident, but detectable the alteration of the enzymes characteristic of the pancreas. Finally, another strong evidence of the relationship between virus and digestive system is the fact that in acute infection there is a significant fecal elimination of Sars-CoV-2, probably after the initial phase, during which the virus is localized in the pathways upper airways, before it reaches the other organs and gastrointestinal tissues “.