Ventilatory efficiency in response to maximal exercise in persistent COVID-19 syndrome patients: a cross-sectional study

Reduced muscle strength in patients with long-COVID-19 syndrome is mediated by limb muscle mass

“…Our report is consistent with that of Pleguezuelos et al ( 20 ) who also showed that patients with post-acute COVID-19 syndrome that followed acute COVID-19 requiring admission to the intensive care unit (ICU) suffered from reduced exercise efficiency and with that of de Boer et al ( 32 ) showing that COVID-19 does impact mitochondrial function in patients with preserved pulmonary and cardiac function; however, both studies focused on cardiorespiratory fitness values and not on muscle mass changes as we did in our study. In addition, these data of patients with long-COVID-19 syndrome complement the study published by our group ( 22 ) that reduced fitness capacity in patients with persistent COVID-19 are unknown, but it has been hypothesized that not only lower limb muscle quantity/quality decreases but also excess adiposity (as seen in this series) and low levels of physical activity could partly explain the findings of this study.…”

“…This exploratory secondary analysis used baseline data from “The EXER-COVID Crossover Study” (NCT04797871) ( 21 ). The characteristics of the study cohort have been previously described ( 22 ). All patients were from the Hospital Universitario de Navarra (Pamplona, Spain) and were screened for inclusion by a physician to confirm a diagnosis of COVID-19 and no other psychiatric or somatic conditions that could explain the persistent COVID-19 symptoms.…”

“…Control participants ( n = 99) had no flu-like symptoms. The characteristics of the two cohorts have been previously described ( 22 ). The study was conducted according to the Declaration of Helsinki and was approved by the Ethics Committee on Human Research (CEIH, Protocol No.…”

Las alteraciones metabólicas y funcionales asociadas a la COVID-19

“…Recientemente, un meta-análisis de Durstenfeld et al observó una diferencia media en el VO2 máximo de −4.9 (IC 95 % −6.4 a −3.4) ml/kg/min al evaluar aquellos estudios que compararon a pacientes con y sin síntomas tras la COVID-19 229. Estos hallazgos también han sido descritos en otros estudios retrospectivos[230][231][232][233][234][235][236] y prospectivos[237][238][239][240][241][242][243][244][245] que evaluaron la capacidad del ejercicio tras la infección por SARS-CoV-2. En relación con la evolución temporal de estos síntomas, algunos estudios sugieren que existe una mejoría progresiva que viene acompañada de una resolución de los síntomas,246 aunque es menor en comparación a los controles sanos 247 y podría no estar presente en todos los pacientes,231 248,249 Sin embargo, una de las principales limitaciones de todos los estudios es la ausencia de una ergoespirometría basal, aunque estudios con deportistas de élite objetivaron también una disminución de la capacidad funcional en aquellos con síntomas persistentes[248][249][250] que mejoró en el seguimiento 249,250.…”