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It's always reassuring when the results of one's work, get support from larger studies.

I must admit to a small ego-supportive moment when my work on Calcitonin in the 1980's is carried forwards today, and especially when applied in daily clinical practice.

---- Returning to more humble territory ----

In my Duration of Illness survey, one question explored the idea that many findings reported by those with "long-term" COVID-19 (LTC) were similar to those associated with aging.

Having such symptoms when one is ±40 years old, would probably qualify as "premature aging."

Here in this Results category of articles published at StudyLTCovid.com, the reader is unlikely to find meta-analyses with 'n' values of ± 20 thousand or so study participants.

But when Small Group Statistical Methods are applied and suggest real findings, that's more to our liking.

Here below, between 13 October, 2022 and 19 November, 2023, 76 individuals with presumed LTC responded to our "Duration of Illness" survey.

In the present article, I look at what 74 responses suggested about this topic of "premature aging."

Yes, n = 74 may not seem like many (or enough of a sample) to some readers.

When certain methods of analysis are adhered to and applied, 74 may be of use.

In reviewing responses to this particular survey, an impression began to form of "being on to something" already several years ago.

Results below include 74 respondents who felt that they still had major symptoms, were still ill but getting better, or were now over their LTC and back to normal. (2 non-responders).

Summarizing the graphic below, 53 individuals (71.6%) seemed to find some relation of their personal findings to complaints found among the aged.

If one limits responses to those who felt their LTC was still quite present, that provided the following: (76% found some link to 'premature aging').

If nothing else, such results suggest that an argument for further pursuit of this finding was merited.

If this 'hint' of effects is true for those with LTC, it of course suggests a host of related questions. The first perhaps would be found under a heading of "findings tied to the presence of LTC in an individual":

• • "Why would this be so?" (= what are the anatomic, physiologic, genetic and pathologic findings that generate this "aging" result).
  • "Are these findings only related to LTC, or to other illnesses as well?" (here, a panel of diagnosis-related questions comes to mind).
  • ________ this space provided for the reader's question(s)

A second series of questions might be found under a heading of "so what can we do about this premature aging?" or, "what can we offer today to the person with persistent LTC findings?"

• • "What fixes do we have based on current knowledge?"
  • "What can we try today, that is safe and perhaps effective?"
  • "Who will bear the responsibility for suggesting interventions that may be costly, unsafe, harmful?" (For example: "I tried this, ... you should to" approach. Is this the best route towards success for LTC?) Personal responsibility for one's therapeutic decisions, leads to good Medical practice.
  • ________ this space provided for the reader's question(s)

Presentation on this site of other results of the "Duration of Illness" survey and their analysis

have been provided elsewhere, with occasional updates as given below:

• Introduction to the survey with on-page access to survey
• Update Oct 10, 2022
• Update Nov 14, 2022, with subgroups

If you have LTC and have not yet taken the "Duration of Illness" survey, your responses would clearly still be of use and shared appropriately with others as just done here. Click the link to take the "Duration of Illness" survey. Thank you in advance.

The conclusion here is that I aim to link what I consider to be preliminary but important results as presented above, to another work that readers may more easily accept. Something from "Big Science."

Something tied to greater resources than I personally have at my disposal.

Ideas, I have at my disposal.

And as Albert Einstein is quoted as saying: "If at first the idea is not absurd, then there is no hope for it."

Everything presented at StudyLTCovid.com about our intervention with red and near-infrared photobiomodulation might fit with Einstein's comment. That does not keep me from forging ahead and of course, completely dependent on the kind and dedicated participation of those 

with LTC.

My wanderings through ideas that initially sounded a bit absurd to a person with a Surgical, ICU and Research background, can be found at LTCovid.com  Others may prefer to take those wanderings as, "chance favors the prepared mind." Louis Pasteur

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Below, find links to the following article:

"Evidence for Biological Age Acceleration and Telomere Shortening in COVID-19 Survivors."

This link: takes one to this article at the National Library of Medicine.

This link: the article as saved on the present site in PDF format.

I have copied the Keywords, as selected by the authors & editors: biological age, COVID-19, post-COVID-19, telomeres, epigenetics, DNA methylation, ACE2, DPP-4, DeltaAge

It should be unecessary to include my encouragement to read the article: Especially true if you have LTC.

Read it.

I won't presume to pick out it's high and low points for inclusion here.

I find it a quite strong piece of work.

But if it leaves you with questions, and you don't want to address them to the corresponding author (carlo.gaetano@icsmaugeri.it), which is the better suggestion, feel free to drop me a line at Questions@StudyLTCovid.com 

Here, as a 'come-on' to reading the rest through the links provided above, is the article's Abstract: (with my highlighting)

"The SARS-CoV-2 infection determines the COVID-19 syndrome characterized, in the worst cases, by severe respiratory distress, pulmonary and cardiac fibrosis, inflammatory cytokine release, and immunosuppression. This condition has led to the death of about 2.15% of the total infected world population so far. Among survivors, the presence of the so-called persistent post-COVID-19 syndrome (PPCS) is a common finding. In COVID-19 survivors, PPCS presents one or more symptoms: fatigue, dyspnea, memory loss, sleep disorders, and difficulty concentrating. In this study, a cohort of 117 COVID-19 survivors (post-COVID-19) and 144 non-infected volunteers (COVID-19-free) was analyzed using pyrosequencing of defined CpG islands previously identified as suitable for biological age determination. The results show a consistent biological age increase in the post-COVID-19 population, determining a DeltaAge acceleration of 10.45 ± 7.29 years (+5.25 years above the range of normality) compared with 3.68 ± 8.17 years for the COVID-19-free population (p < 0.0001). A significant telomere shortening parallels this finding in the post-COVID-19 cohort compared with COVID-19-free subjects (p < 0.0001). Additionally, ACE2 expression was decreased in post-COVID-19 patients, compared with the COVID-19-free population, while DPP-4 did not change. In light of these observations, we hypothesize that some epigenetic alterations are associated with the post-COVID-19 condition, particularly in younger patients (< 60 years)."

And just perhaps: (me again here)...

Change the epigenetics, and change the LTC outcomes.

We include our interventions as described on this site, as part of that thought.

Some may find that thought absurd. I hope so.

(And as always, "our" = me and those kind LTC and control study participants).

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After what is now years (i.e., 3+) of personal study with individuals presenting with "long-term" COVID-19, well, ... where are the RESULTS  of all of that work?

I'll start placing them, little by little, under this RESULTS category found in the lateral menu.

Come back from time to time to check for more RESULTS.

I could start this introduction with topics or questions like:

• "Why aren't you publishing this in the peer-reviewed literature ?" (I've done that in the past at other times, and with other topics. Might eventually do this with this topic once the focus switches from each day helping people feel better, to writing about how we did that).
• "Is this just more testimonial(s) and magic?" (Don't think so. Small Group Statistical Methods have been quite revealing and convincing, at least for me. I add a quick Thank You! here to R.Cliff Bailley and W. Ed.Deming for all that they tried to teach this non-gifted student!).
• "How many people have you studied? Thousands, like in any good meta-analysis?" (Nope. Not yet. Don't need to).
• "Say, who has been paying for the work that has generated all these RESULTS?" (That's easy: Me.)
• 'You better hurry! You've been floundering around for more than 3 years here. It looks like others have taken up many of your suggestions published here and on your other sites. They've picked up the ball and are running with it! You better get a move on ! They're selling red lights for God's sake!! People are buying Red Lights! ..." (That's perfect. Fine and dandy as long as what they're copying and researching on their own leads to people with LTC feeling better. It souldn't be a race. It should be a manifestation of global scientific cooperation). And oh: not all sold "red lights" get the job done quite effectively. See here, and also here for a relevant start about "the lights." (3+ years old but still useful (<<<biased statement))
• Other possible topics or questions ... (Let's move on for now).

Instead, I prefer to continue this Introduction to the RESULTS section as follows:

(Some will find this trivial, wordy, and/ or unrelated to "long-term" COVID-19 as we have come to know it. And for some, of no value. OK by me. If you read on, live with it, as I must).

Slow and Steady As She Goes ...

Stay with me as I advance here.

My grandfather died at age 96. (He had been a pipe smoker his whole life. He had developed a squamous cell carcinoma on his epiglottis; probably related. When he drank his soup in his last years, he would cough a bit, because his epiglottis wasn't closing completely, and he was aspirating a bit of each spoonful down his airway. That eventually gave him an aspiration pneumonia that one night, he peacefully died of).

In life, I remember him saying from time to time, when the appropriate occasion arose:

"Patience et longueur de temps, font plus que force, ni que rage."

Which I translate:

"Patience, and the passing of time, accomplish more than either forcing, or getting enraged about a situation."

This approach seemed to have worked pretty well for him, at least until age 96.

I've even tried applying this approach to my challenges from time to time. I still spend some time with forcing, and getting carried away. Neither of which, of course, affect the passage of time.

LTC RESULT NUMBER 1:

(Watch out, because this isn't actually a RESULT. It's a conclusion. Several conclusions.

The effects of the intervention with light that we have been applying to participants with "long-term" COVID-19 through our protocols here (see Lateral Menu at right) are:

• Real effects, not imagined (can say the same for "long-term" COVID-19, no?)
• Subtle in manifesting (need to know exactly where to look for effects). Subtle but still real. (That's very important).
• Statistically proven
• Proven safe so far
• Like most things in life, are probably not permanent (need to get out the light from time to time, after your 10 days/ 10 or 20 min per day, certainly of initial use... but do it again. Think of yourself as a Cro-Magnon, coming out of your cave to sniff the air and look up at the sun. Most archeologists have documented the absence of electric plugs and colored lamps in Cro-Magnon living quarters, but they continue to search).
• Depend on effects that are beyond most of us to understand completely (because, for example, we don't understand completely the neutrophils and other cells cruising through our capillaries. It's good that they do. They have more knowledge about their existence than we do. That's OK. I'm convinced that they know what they need to be doing at any point in their 6 to 12 hour life. (Maybe I should do more like them, and stop wasting time when it's of the essence). Above my desk in the Surgical Research Lab in 1978, I hung a sign: "If We Knew What We Are Doing, It Wouldn't Be RESEARCH." This is still research. The next time you take a taxi ride in London, ask the cabby: "Do you know where you're going?" Write to tell me the cabby's response.
• Are all the RESULTs in? No. Still gathering data. Still analyzing it. Still thinking about it and sharing with others for feedback. Still enrolling participants (Say, are you willing to throw in your 10 days of effort? Not yet? Oh, OK. I understand). But our work together is definitely continuing to talk back. That was after all, my goal during the last 3+ years, day after day: to see if the intervention with light as developed here does good things for those with "long-term" COVID-19, or seems to do little or nothing, or even causes harm. That remains the goal: to know for sure. And of course, to tell people with LTC about it, when there's something to say. Here we are today (Oct. 12, 2023): introducing the RESULTS section. Stay tuned.
• If you get to this point and feel like saying: "Sounds very slippery. You'll just have to prove all of the above to me. Nope. Can't buy it just like that !" (Well, that's the point of what should follow in the RESULTS category, as will be found here. You'll just have to come back from time to time. Maintaining patience and calm in the meantime, may help. Don't have the time? Those with "long-term" COVID-19 have been waiting 25+ months, on average). Don't have the patience? I spent years operating on bleeding ulcers. I don't do that anymore and feel mostly better for no longer cutting up and clipping vagus nerve fibers along the esophagus, greater curvature, and duodenal bulb).

Let me offer you a Cocktail to sip on.

But don't take a big gulp. It might just be toxic. Probably is.

Another little family anecdote.

My mother was born here in the low mountains of eastern Belgium on December 4, 1914.

When she was just a kid (6 yrs old, I  recall), an epidemic of diptheria passed through her little town (pop. today, 6650). The same epidemic peaked in the USA in 1921.

When I was doing genealogy research, I discovered at City Hall (among other registers in the basement) the books that contain the "Permis d'inhumer" pages. What's that? When someone died, in the book they wrote all the info about the decedent, as provided by a family member. That included cause of death, age, etc. They wrote it twice. Put a very official stamp on it. Twice. Then, they tore out the copy so that the gravedigger at the cemetary had permission to start digging. The family member carried it to the cemetery, and their child's burial arrangements could continue to proceed. Might have been a tough walk to the cemetery. But remember: these people lived back in the days when ships were made of wood and men ( and women) were made of steel.

Well, the first 6 pages of the book in the year of the diphtheria epidemic are all info on kids. One after another. All kids. Six on a page. Copies torn out for the gravedigger.

----------

My Mom always seemed quite proud that she had been one of the survivors.

Her name is now in another book, but not that one just mentioned above. 

When there was some real or imagined cause to bring up her recovery from that epidemic, she did. She was a survivor. Got to the finish line.

But, so how did she swing that: that survivor's result?

What was different about her, from children she had known and started school with, did her First Communion with, who didn't survive?

On the one hand, epidemiologists might like to know. They probably already do for diphtheria.

On the other, while diphtheria is making a comeback, it's mostly a thing of the past.

You're the doc? Don't forgrt it's on the upswing when looking at a sore throat.

Swab it. And if it looks particularly nasty in there (tonsillar pus and especially if a gray membrane forming in the tonsillar fossae), sometimes just a cutaneous rash and blisters in an OK throat, treat it. Treat it right then and there when it's in front of your nose. Penicillin or erythromycin. And when the culture comes back in a day or so: Corynebacterium diphtheria well isn't that just perfect? You may even have saved a life. In our day, there's also an antitoxin which prevents organ damage (to be complete for my readers).

Maybe Mom was just a little stronger than the others.

("What in the hell does that mean?!")

Maybe an immunologist, molecular biologist, infectious disease specialist, ENT surgeon, internal medicine or General Practice doc (take your pick) would simply conclude:

"Well yes, you see your Mom did not have health comorbodities that would have made her more susceptible. She didn't have a genetic heart defect, nor other genetic disease. Maybe her family was just rich enough, and had a telephone to quickly call the family doctor without delay and get whatever could be done at that time, done. They did have some treatments at the time. And of course, all of the environmental threats facing us all today, didn't exist. She lived healthy, ate healthy, played healthy, and didn't have her nose glued to a PC screen all day long. She survived because of all of those positives and lack of negatives, all taken together, contributed to her health and provided for her recovery. ... Obviously."

The expert might have said something like that.

COVID-19 ?

Yes, we're now all experts in comorbidities, viral persistance, history of EBV, hormonal effects, vitamin deficiencies, histamine blockers, cytokines, T-cell families and assays, vaccine toxicities and side-effects, graded exercise recovery programs, breathing exercises, cardiovascumar and other physiologies, latest SARS-Co2 variants. Now, we're all expert in those topics and things to avoid or to buy.

We know all of that. So why are you still sick?

OK. So? Don't have a sore throat? Have LTC instead ?

"Hey, how about that Cocktail that you promised?!"

I'll be brief (or less long).

If you get and read: "Slow Death by Rubber Duck," you'll get a reminder about all the things in our personal environment that are aimed at killing us. All the things (like Teflon coated cookware) that are in our environment, and will now be persisting there forever. Of course, not really placed there for killing us, but for our pleasure, ease and well-being. Well, you knew all that. 

Do you have a Teflon-coated frying pan?

What are your personal experiences with 5G? Not yet exposed?

You're not an RF-EMF "hypersensitive" I hope?

When everyone globally signed up to be a research participant in the global 5G intervention (already well underway), did you check the box so you could opt out? No?

I'll spare you the rest of the nasty items in our Daily Cocktail.

Sure, diphtheria and other infectious diseases have been mostly mastered.

We can live to 96 like Grandpa. Except he still had an intact brain and I probably won't if I get to that age.

But I can hopefully count on those keeping an eye on me in my "Dementia Village" apartment and well before that age, to turn Dependence back into Independence for me. I can't wait.

Think about this parting shot.

The Coronavirus has been with us for quite a while. Twenty years ago and even less, it was one of the common causes of a plain old 6-day cold.

Now, the variants are killing people. Coronavirus has become at times, incredibly lethal.

Q: Did it change? Or, did we?

Have our individual immune systems so taken a hit from our daily sip of the Toxic Cocktail, that we're not ready to fight off anything gaining access to our ACE-2 receptors with the next sneeze?

Just maybe, when it comes to challenges to our health, perhaps we're no longer even candidates for a haircut. The next shave might start me down that road towards the "Great Migration" to the hereafter... For future archeologists among my readers,  I've asked to be wrapped in a Teflon bag. Should be good for a very, very long time.

Your Toxic Cocktail is almost certainly not identical to mine.

So un-health findings with "long-term" COVID-19 have varied markedly from one participant to the next. Same for what has "worked" for some, but not for others.

Checked out the Facebook Group to see what's popular today? HBOT? HRT? PBM? A new Garmin watch to measure VO2, anxiety level and how many hours you slept? Ignore any WiFi's that are disturbing your REM sleep and creating early morning wakefulness. Ignore that.Your new watch can use it.

The commonly-encountered attitude (which is itself a toxin produced by the Medical Industry and including Big Pharma) is that in just a bit, probably tomorrow, they'll finally discover the cure. Saved. Expensive at first, but so what? Saved. We'll do like they do: sell lots of drugs, get cash, buy the cure.

In the meantime, I'll keep working away patiently and calmly when possible, with my increasingly large family of long-haulers.

And here on this site, I'll share the RESULTS: good, bad, whatever.

So do check back.

Now, I need to go take another sip of my personal Cocktail.

À votre santé!

We'll keep carefully turning and adjusting the progress knob to get even little improvements, in those nagging "long-term" COVID-19 findings.

And do remember to feedback your progress and questions:

Questions@StudyLTCovid.com

Thanks !

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