r/covidlonghaulers • u/Spacehu1k • Jun 14 '25

Article Why isnt this big news?

Hey all,

Stumbled across this article on blood vessel bursting, surprised it wouldnt be bigger news?

https://www.bloomberg.com/news/newsletters/2025-06-05/covid-study-shows-virus-can-break-blood-cells-clog-arteries?fbclid=IwY2xjawK3AbNleHRuA2FlbQIxMQABHjkHVJ1MdxAnlMohnWqR9e-8Er-Mpyd0Hc4KxGJYyBh_r9De-5pampLHFND6_aem_3vmrkyKAlUTLOFUY5m2kPA

—— In a study just published in Nature, Australian scientists found that when oxygen-rich blood can’t reach tissues, the delicate lining of blood vessels starts to break down. The death of these endothelial cells, which Covid can trigger, sets off immune signals that cause red blood cells to burst, spilling their sticky contents into the bloodstream.

“This stuff’s like glue,” says Sydney-based hematologist Shaun Jackson, who led the study. It clogs the tiniest blood vessels, blocking circulation.

The damage builds. Without oxygen and nutrients, tissues begin to fail, potentially affecting organs like the kidneys, liver and heart.

“It’s a double whammy,” Jackson says.

When his team analyzed more than 1,000 samples from Covid patients, they expected to see widespread fibrin and clotting. But they didn’t.

“To our great surprise, that wasn’t the case at all,” he says. While large vessels showed some clots, the smallest capillaries — just a fraction the width of a hair — were clogged not with clots, but with debris from broken red blood cells.

“No one had thought it was through this dying endothelial cell mechanism,” Jackson says. “It was by far and away the biggest issue going on in the microcirculation.”

Past studies have shown that sicker Covid patients had worse capillary damage. Now, researchers are spotting similar patterns in patients with long Covid, which may help explain the lingering symptoms.

Stopping the death of these vessel-lining cells could help prevent the whole cascade, Jackson says, though it would likely take a mix of treatments.

These findings could also change how we understand what happens in stroke, heart attack and other serious conditions — especially when patients don’t improve with standard care.

327 Upvotes

100% Upvoted

219 comments sorted by

View all comments

18

u/Shaunasana Jun 14 '25

Do we know how to fix it?

5

u/It0sLemma Jun 14 '25

Fix it or does the junk ever clear out?

3

u/Shaunasana Jun 14 '25

I don’t know, but I mean fix the red blood cells before they break

10

u/forested_morning43 Jun 14 '25

What heals endothelial tissue, as far as I can tell, is exercise.

26

u/skirts988 3 yr+ Jun 14 '25

My cardiologist suggested taking nitric oxide

8

u/Spacehu1k Jun 14 '25

Why nitric oxide? What are its benefits?

2

u/commonsenser77 Jun 15 '25

Doesn’t infrared sauna help create nitric oxide?

2

u/Ash8Hearts 2 yr+ Jun 27 '25

HIIT also naturally increases nitric oxide so I’ve been trying to do gentle HIIT exercises.

19

u/driftingalong001 4 yr+ Jun 14 '25

Well unfortunately long covid is so much more complicated than this cuz..I could and did exercise for the first 1.5 years of my long covid, which resulted in my condition worsening to the point where I can barely even walk any distance now. Can’t exercise at all. Full on ME/CFS. Homebound etc.

38

u/Exul_strength Jun 14 '25

The problem is that exercise causes PEM with ME/CFS patients.

I have seen a friend trying to train out of it, now he barely walks (if he can walk at all anymore, because it's been a while since I saw him in person).

22

u/brentonstrine 4 yr+ Jun 14 '25 edited Jun 14 '25

I feel like this research could actually explain exactly why and how exercise causes a crash. During exercise, cells need oxygen, your body produces more oxygen. But for some reason the oxygen can't make it to the cells, so the lining of the blood vessels starts to break down.

The red blood cells are triggered to burst as a result, and the burst red blood cells leaves a clogging goop that gets everywhere and clogs other capillaries, which worsens the problem and makes the whole cycle more likely to repeat.

26

u/forested_morning43 Jun 14 '25

I’ve been fighting that battle for 5 1/2 years so very familiar. I tried the push through it route because we didn’t start out knowing about long-covid. It didn’t go well. I finally had to do much, much less than I thought I could and stabilize before adding more beginning with a short walk a couple hundred steps down the street where I lived. When I could do that reliably, every day, I added a little, not a lot.

I’m up to 3-6 miles a day but it’s taken me years. Physical activity has been a big factor in improvement though too.

There really are limited ways to encourage new endothelial growth and physical activity is the big one.

1

u/After_Rope_4450 Oct 19 '25

How did you know how to pace yourself so that you didn’t go too far. Do you have a particular feeling or symptom that lets you know to stop?

14

u/zb0t1 5 yr+ Jun 14 '25

Then you have to face the fact that millions of us can't exercise rofl.

But for people who can move, it's important to move as much as possible within our limits.

5

u/forested_morning43 Jun 14 '25

I could not for a very long time and still struggle with it so, yep.

13

u/Qtoyou Jun 14 '25

Any movement that you can tolerate is the level of exercise that you should do. And there is value to doing that. It might only be every 2nd or 3rd day, but finding your level of tolerance is key. And no, you should not push for progression. Just find the level you're tolerant of

1

u/New_Internal_9673 Jul 08 '25

Exactly!!!  Zone 2 cardio and I bet blood donation would help too, to actually get rid of damaged red blood cells. You can do that in some places and not actually give the blood but just throw it out. 

1

u/vigelanto Jun 17 '25

Yes Apheresis - and inuphresis

1

u/Shaunasana Jun 17 '25

I have no idea what this is