Correlating COVID-19 severity with biomarker profiles and patient prognosis.

COVID-19's long-lasting and complex impacts have become a global concern, with diverse clinical outcomes. This study evaluated 226 participants to understand the clinical spectrum of COVID-19/Long COVID (LC), exploring how disease severity correlates with sociodemographic factors and biomarkers. Determinants related to COVID-19 severity included age (P < 0.001), lower education (P < 0.001), ethnicity (P = 0.003), overweight (P < 0.001), MTHFR gene rs1801133 (P = 0.035), cardiovascular diseases (P = 0.002), diabetes mellitus (DM) (P = 0.006), Factor VIII (FVIII) (P = 0.046), von Willebrand factor (VWF) (P = 0.002), and dimer D (DD) (P < 0.001). Six months later, in a portion of the monitored participants, a significant reduction in FVIII (P < 0.001), VWF (P = 0.002), and DD (P < 0.001) levels was observed, with only DD returning to normal values. Different systemic sequelae were identified, with higher incidences of joint pain and myalgia in participants with a clinical history of DM, chronic lung disease (CLD) and sustained high interleukin 6 values in the convalescent phase. CLD, COVID-19 severity and high DD levels increased the risk of developing dyspnea and palpitations. Women were more likely to develop lower limb phlebitis long-term, while sustained elevated FVIII in the convalescent phase was associated with an increased risk of swelling. Regular physical activity had a protective effect against swelling. This study highlights factors contributing to COVID-19 severity/LC, emphasizing endothelial cell activation as a potential mechanism.

Moderate physical exercise reduces parasitaemia and protects colonic myenteric neurons in mice infected with Trypanosoma cruzi.

This study evaluated the influence of moderate physical exercise on the myenteric neurons in the colonic intestinal wall of mice that had been infected with Trypanosoma cruzi. Parasitology and immunological aspects of the mice were considered. Forty-day-old male Swiss mice were divided into four groups: Trained Infected (TI), Sedentary Infected (SI), Trained Control (TC), and Sedentary Control (SC). The TC and TI were subjected to a moderate physical exercise program on a treadmill for 8 weeks. Three days after finishing exercise, the TI and SI groups were inoculated with 1,300 blood trypomastigotes of the Y strain-T. cruzi. After 75 days of infection results were obtained. Kruskal-Wallis or Analyze of variance (Tukey post hoc test) at 5% level of significance was performed. Moderate physical exercise reduced both the parasite peak (day 8 of infection) and total parasitemia compared with the sedentary groups (P < 0.05). This activity also contributed to neuronal survival (P < 0.05). Exercise caused neuronal hypertrophy (P < 0.05) and an increase in the total thickness of the intestinal wall (P < 0.05). The TI group exhibited an increase in the number of intraepithelial lymphocytes (P > 0.05). In trained animals, the number of goblet cells was reduced compared with sedentary animals (P < 0.05). Physical exercise prevented the formation of inflammatory foci in the TI group (P < 0.05) and increased the synthesis of TNF-α (P < 0.05) and TGF-ß (P > 0.05). The present results demonstrated the benefits of moderate physical exercise, and reaffirmed the possibility of that it may contribute to improving clinical treatment in Chagas' disease patients.