As many as one in three COVID-19 survivors suffer from persistent health problems. Lost productivity and an increasing burden on the sick-care system will compound and extend the pandemic’s costs globally. See Managing COVID-19 long-haulers, in Barrie, what’s our plan?
A recent study published in the Annals of Internal Medicine found that one-third of patients with COVID-19 continued to suffer persistent symptoms. (1) Symptoms can include cognitive impairments described as persistent ‘brain fog’ (similar to the patient in the CBC exposé), headaches, severe fatigue, muscle and joint pain, paresthesias or tingling, shortness of breath, exercise intolerance, chest pain, anxiety, depression, elevated heart rate (tachycardia) and other cardiovascular issues. (2)
…What’s concerning is that this constellation of multisystem disease symptoms can arise even after a relatively mild acute exposure. (3)
…As confirmed cases of COVID-19 reach 100 million globally (4), the aftermath of this post-COVID disease will be catastrophic to already overburdened healthcare systems. These consequences are further magnified when the number of mild undiagnosed cases are also considered.
Taking proactive steps possible to avoid illness and improve personal habits remain the best strategies. This includes a focus on the types of food and beverages we are ingesting.
Sugar and processed foods are two of the most widely abused drugs that are subsidized and encouraged by current policies and social norms. According to Diabetes Canada, diabetes or prediabetes affects one in three Canadians, costing some $30 billion annually. On track to get worse, one in two young adults are expected to develop diabetes in their remaining lifetime.
Alcohol has long been associated with major social problems. What’s less understood is that ethanol, the type of alcohol we drink, is a Group 1 carcinogen, even at low levels of consumption. Bummer, but fact. See the Globe and Mail’s recent expose Canada’s drinking problem: Why alcohol is the new cigarette:
Alcohol is an expensive and dangerous habit for society. Tally the cost of deaths, accidents, illness, lost productivity and criminal justice against the public dollars made selling alcohol, and, Canadian research shows, governments end up deep in the red. The heaviest drinkers cost the most, as individuals. But an overwhelming chunk of that cost comes from the much larger group of moderate drinkers – people having a couple vodka sodas each night after work, the parents regularly sneaking Baileys into their coffee mugs at the park. Adam Sherk, a postdoctoral fellow at the Canadian Institute for Substance Use Research at the University of Victoria, crunched the numbers and found that Canadian provinces and territories were running a national alcohol deficit of $3.7-billion a year.
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