Health hit from Covid pig-out
Aussie research has identified the cause of long Covid, opening the way for potential treatments
FEWER than one in 10 Aussies ate enough fruit and vegetables during the Covid-19 pandemic last year, adding to the nation’s obesity crisis.
At the same time, nearly 4 per cent of children and one in 10 adults consumed a sugary drink every day, new data from the Australian Bureau of Statistics (ABS) shows.
The pandemic also turned us into couch potatoes, with fewer than one in 10 (8.9 per cent) young people, and one in four adults, meeting the physical activity guidelines of at least 60 minutes of moderate to vigorous physical activity every day.
“It’s all going the wrong way,” Dietitians Australia chief executive Robert Hunt said.
“It’s still 94 per cent of the population who are not eating enough fruit and vegetables.”
The consequences can be fatal, with 27,500 Australians dying from an unhealthy diet through chronic diseases including cancer and heart disease, Mr Hunt said.
The new data came as Monash University research showed the poor diet and exercise regimes of our children could have other long-lasting effects.
Children with the highest levels of cardio and muscle fitness and lower waist sizes went on to perform better in cognitive tests and have more brain power in middle age, the research found.
Australians have admitted they gained weight during the pandemic, with a global Ipsos survey and a separate LiveLighter survey finding between 35 and 37 per cent of Australians stacked on kilos.
This was before recent food price rises, making a healthy diet even harder to maintain.
As well as poor diets, Aussies boozed their way through the pandemic, with ABS data showing one in four adults drank either more than 10 drinks a week or more than five drinks a day at least monthly.
The pandemic also impacted on mental health, with one in five (or five million) people of all ages reporting they experienced a mental or behavioural condition in 2020-21.
One in 10 – 2.7 million – Australians had asthma while one in 20 had diabetes.
Smoking rates have declined but one in 10 adults were still daily smokers.
Dietitians Australia warns that if we keep eating the way we are, the most recent data available shows Australia is on track to foot an over-$80bn bill to deal with obesity-related costs between 2025 to 2045.
If Australians ate consistent with the Australian Dietary Guidelines, the disease burden would be reduced by 62 per cent for coronary heart disease alone.
The association wants the Albanese government to fund a national nutrition strategy.
It's a bit like building the aeroplane while you’re flying
BREAKTHROUGH Australian research has identified the nerve toxins behind the brain fog and cognitive impairment suffered by tens of thousands of people with long Covid.
The discovery opens the way for trials of potential treatments, including an existing drug for epilepsy, and provides hope that new treatments being trialled to treat cognitive damage in cancer patients might also be able to help with long Covid.
Professor Bruce Brew, a neurologist from St Vincent’s Hospital and the University of NSW, who made the discovery, said long Covid patients suffered “slow thought processes and confusion which is similar to a traumatic brain injury”. This brain injury persists for at least a year, his research found.
One in five of the 128 long Covid patients in his ADAPT study have cognitive issues that he has found are linked to the Kynurenine pathway in the human body.
This pathway is involved in providing the body with energy, in balancing mood and is critical in dampening down the immune system.
When it is activated by an infection it can raise levels of chemicals called quinolinic acid and 3 hydroxyanthranilic acid (3HAA). “When it’s excessively activated, in the context of infections, it will cause neurological effects, it will induce neurotoxicity, it’ll kill or injure nerve cells,” Prof Brew said.
He hopes larger studies will prove blood tests for increased presence of these chemicals could be used as biomarkers for long Covid brain injury and help guide treatment.
The discovery also provides a target for potential treatments.
He said there were currently phase one and phase two studies of drugs that target this same pathway in treating cancer patients that potentially could be used.
“And there are some intriguing data that you could potentially repurpose some drugs (used to control seizures) as they have off-target effects, at least in cell culture on this,” he said.
Nine in 10 of the long Covid patients in his study had mild cases of Covid and did not need hospital treatment.
But months after clearing the infection they suffered debilitating symptoms that prevented them working or functioning normally.
One vaccinated patient who caught Covid ran a successful business but is no longer able to work because he was no longer able to understand the contracts that were being drawn up, Prof Brew said.
A senior legal practitioner found the brain injury was so significant he has had to take time off work.
“I think that the public have not been fully informed (on the long-term effects of Covid),” Prof Brew said.
“The focus has been on deaths and ICU admissions, they are the parameters by which they judge whether Covid is still a problem or not,” he said.
“The functional impact of milder cases of Covid on patients’ wellbeing and their economic contribution to society has been completely missed.”