Key Points
A new study published this week in Science makes a compelling case that people with long covid have a chronic imbalance in their immune response..
This is important new piece to the vexing puzzle that is long covid..
Using sophisticated technologies to analyse more than 6,500 proteins in each blood sample, they found a distinct signal: People with long covid had elevated levels of proteins involved in the complement" systema part of our immune response that tags foreign microbes for disposal..
But when that part of our immune response is constantly triggered, it can cause inflammation and cell and tissue damage, and even causes increased blood clottingall symptoms found in people with long covid, explains immunologist Onur Boyman, who led the study..
The work doesnt explain why this arm of the immune system continues to be on high alert in some people, while others recoveronly that it seems to be a common feature of long covid..
