New research from the University of East Anglia shows that overweight women are more likely to have symptoms of long Covid.

The new study, which came out today, is one of the biggest UK studies ever done on long Covid. It demonstrates that a greater body mass index is associated with the condition and that women are more likely to suffer long Covid than men.

The study also found that compared to patients who have a speedy recovery, those with chronic Covid were much more likely to need additional, and often lasting care.

“Long Covid is a complex condition,” explains Prof Vassilios Vassiliou, “that develops during or after having covid, and it is classified as such when symptoms continue for more than 12 weeks.

“Just over two million people in the UK are thought to suffer with long Covid and it affects people in different ways. Breathlessness, a cough, heart palpitations, headaches, and severe fatigue are among the most prevalent symptoms.

“Other symptoms may include chest pain or tightness, brain fog, insomnia, dizziness, joint pain, depression and anxiety, tinnitus, loss of appetite, headaches, and changes to sense of smell or taste.

“We wanted to find out what factors might make people more or less susceptible to developing long Covid.”

The research team talked to Norfolk patients who had a positive covid PCR test result in the year 2020. An online poll that addressed long-lasting symptoms including anxiety, fatigue, and memory issues was completed by 1,487 people in total.

They discovered that 774 individuals, or more than half, reported having at least one long Covid symptom, indicating a high self-reported prevalence.

Next, they looked at the medical records of the people who took part to see what might make people more or less likely to get the disease.

Body mass index, sex, medication usage, the presence of other medical issues, and whether or not they resided in a low-income neighborhood were all assessed.

“We show that more than a half of the survey respondents,” according to the authors, “who tested positive for Covid in the East of England during the first year of the pandemic went on to report long Covid symptoms.

“All of these people were infected in the months before the Covid vaccination programme was rolled out and they suffered from numerous new symptoms that were not present before their Covid infection.

“Interestingly, we found that more women than men had long Covid symptoms. We also found that having a higher BMI was linked with long Covid.

“This is really important because information like this can be used to profile those people who are ‘at risk’ of developing long Covid.

“We also found that people with long Covid were over three times more likely to use healthcare services than those who didn’t display long Covid symptoms.”

Image Credit: Nathan Posner/Anadolu Agency via Getty Images