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What harm Covid-19 does to the body – health

Severe courses of Covid-19 affect almost all organs and parts of the body. The reason is a common molecule that uses the corona virus.

If doctors get an overview of the courses of Covid-19, they see an astonishingly diverse picture. The lungs are usually affected first. If the immune system fails to remove the coronaviruses from the throat and get into the lower respiratory tract, they enter the cells there. Direct damage from the viruses and the subsequent inflammation cause immune cells and dead tissue to attach to the alveoli, which makes gas exchange difficult. This is why shortness of breath is typical when patients fall ill.

But the fear of not having enough ventilators for the sick may have narrowed the view of Sars-CoV-2. In the meantime, it has been shown that the novel corona virus can damage almost every other organ in addition to the lungs. The disease then affects the whole body, from head to toe. Recently doctors in the New England Journal of Medicine described the course of the disease in almost 9,000 patients for whom the infection required hospitalization.

More than 500 of the sick died, equivalent to 5.8 percent. Almost 8,400 recovered and were discharged from the clinic. In older patients and those with damage to the heart and blood vessels, the risk of death was increased up to three times. Narrated coronary arteries, heart failure and arrhythmia have been shown to be risk factors, as have obstructive pulmonary disorders and smoking. But other organs are also affected. “The disease can attack anything in the body, with devastating consequences,” says cardiologist Harlan Krumholz from Yale University. “The brutality with which the virus rages makes me humble.”

The immune system does more than is necessary

Several mechanisms help the virus to conquer the body. Because Sars-CoV-2 is novel for humans, the body’s defenses often respond excessively; the immune system does more than is necessary. A cytokine storm is the activation of the immune cells and their messenger substances after contact with the foreign pathogen. Healthy cells also suffer, as a result of which blood vessels leak, clots form, and blood pressure drops. With age, the immune response becomes more violent, which explains the damage to other organs and severe courses beyond the age of 65.

It is at least as plausible that Sars-CoV-2 directly damages organs and arteries. Once the virus gets into the lungs and from there into the rest of the organism, it has other goals: the inner wall of the blood vessels called the endothelium, but also the lining of the kidneys, intestines, heart and even the brain. There, as in many other places in the body, is the enzyme ACE-2 (the abbreviation stands for Angiotensin Converting Enzyme). The enzyme anchored to the cell surface regulates blood pressure. Unfortunately, it also serves as an entry point for the corona virus. That is why younger people with no previous illness sometimes suffer from severe courses. “We still don’t know exactly why some patients are badly affected and who is particularly at risk,” says Krumholz.

If the virus infects the inner walls of the heart or vessels, there is direct cell damage, which leads to complications. Clots form on site and the thrombi can loosen and lead to constipation in the circulation or in the organs. When infected with viruses, ACE-2 disappears in the cell, which locally confuses blood pressure. In response to the viral attack, some vessels narrow until the blood supply is insufficient. An infarction threatens in the coronary arteries, swollen, painful fingers and toes are possible on the extremities, which has been described in some Covid 19 patients. Because the heart and blood vessels of diabetics and high-pressure patients are already damaged, they must fear greater complications.

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Sometimes even the fingers swell and the toes hurt

The harmful effects on the kidneys, digestion and brain must be imagined in a similar way. There is also ACE-2, which acts as a receptor for the viruses. Either the cells are attacked there directly or via the affected blood vessels. Because the kidneys are affected so often, doctors warn that not only ventilators, but also dialysis machines for Covid 19 patients are missing. “If the seriously ill do not die of lung failure, they die of kidney failure,” said Jennifer Frontera of New York University, the journal Science. In some studies, a quarter of the patients had kidney failure and almost half had blood or protein in the urine.

In the intestinal wall, where there are also cells with ACE-2 and thus docking points for the viruses, diarrhea and other conditions are the result. Indigestion is one of the symptoms of Covid-19. And the taste and smell disorders that some patients complain about could be explained by the involvement of small blood vessels in the brain. If large arteries are affected, there is a risk of stroke. The brain damage in severe cases may be underestimated. Finally, it is difficult to determine how severely their cognitive abilities are impaired in ventilated patients.

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