18/01/2026
Dissutonomia y long covid
Importancia de la investigación
Research Update! Researchers recently performed a comprehensive meta-analysis of dozens of Long COVID research studies from around the world and found that a majority of Long COVID patients have dysautonomia. They found an overall prevalence of 70.6% for OI, 36.2% for POTS, and 18.6% for OH within the Long COVID population. You can read the study here: https://www.frontiersin.org/journals/cardiovascular-medicine/articles/10.3389/fcvm.2025.1679252/full
We've been sounding the alarm for years that a large majority of Long COVID patients have dysautonomia, and that autonomic nerve dysfunction is playing a major role in symptoms seen in Long COVID, such as lightheadedness, cognitive impairment/brain fog, fatigue, exercise intolerance, post-exertional malaise, a sense of internal shaking/tremors, poor sleep, GI dysmotility, poor blood flow, and more. Autonomic dysfunction is also known to cause downstream physiological consequences, like increasing the risk of blood clots, the development of inflammatory cytokines and autoantibodies, dysregulation of other immune cells (including mast cells), and more.
How does the COVID-19 virus cause dysautonomia? There are several mechanisms that have been documented to date.
1) Structural damage to the autonomic ganglia during the earliest phases of COVID-19 viral infection, before the virus even shows up on the blood.
2) Structural damage to the small fiber autonomic nerves, which are present throughout the body.
3) Viral infection of the vagus nerves, which supply nerves to all of the visceral organs and play a huge role in regulating immune function and inflammation.
4) Development of autoantibodies that bind to and alter the function of autonomic nerve receptors.
There are other mechanisms too, which aren't as well described yet.
Understanding how an infection can lead to autonomic nerve damage and chronic autonomic nerve dysfunction is really important, because a majority of people with dysautonomia developed it after an infection, and other infection associated chronic conditions, such as Long COVID, chronic Lyme, PANDAS, ME/CFS, multiple sclerosis, and autoimmune diseases that begin after an infection are *ALL* associated with high rates of autonomic dysfunction from the very earliest stages of the illness.
We've called on the NIH RECOVER study, the US government's $1.15B+ study on Long COVID, to prioritize defining the role and the pathology of autonomic dysfunction in Long COVID, and studying treatments that address autonomic dysfunction, but they have largely failed to do so despite our requests and dozens of experienced autonomic researchers advising them to do. As just one example, the NIH RECOVER study refused to collect vagus nerve tissue in their large well-funded autopsy study.
If you are involved in the Long COVID advocacy or research community, speak up and DEMAND that Long COVID researchers properly screen for autonomic dysfunction in their studies, and that treatments that address autonomic dysfunction are prioritized in Long COVID research.
Dysautonomia International has funded critically needed research on autonomic dysfunction in Long COVID through our Long COVID Research Fund. If you'd to support this line of research, please consider making a contribution at longcovidresearchfund.org
