Home » Health » COVID-19 can increase the risk of suffering from Alzheimer’s and Parkinson’s, according to a study – El Financiero

COVID-19 can increase the risk of suffering from Alzheimer’s and Parkinson’s, according to a study – El Financiero

people who gave positive to COVID-19 have a higher risk of suffer from neurodegenerative disorders such as Alzheimer’s, Parkinson’s or brain hemorrhagescompared to people who tested negative for the virus, according to a new study presented at the 8th Congress of the European Academy of Neurology (EAN).

Of the 919 thousand 731 people who were tested for COVID-19 in the study, conducted in Denmark, researchers found that 43,375 individuals who tested positive had a 3.5-fold increased risk of being diagnosed with Alzheimer2.6 times with P diseasearkinson, 2.7 times with a Ischemic stroke and a 4.8-fold increased risk with hemorragia intracerebral.

Although neuroinflammation may contribute to accelerated development of neurodegenerative disorders, the authors highlighted the implications of the scientific approach for long-term sequelae after COVID-19.

The study looked at Danish inpatients and outpatients from February 2020 to November 2021, as well as people with flu from the pre-pandemic period, where the researchers used statistical techniques to calculate relative risk.

“More than two years after the start of the COVID-19 pandemic, the precise nature and course of the effects of COVID-19 on neurological disorders remained uncharacterized. Previous studies have established an association with neurological syndromes, but whether COVID-19 also influences the incidence of specific neurological diseases and whether it differs from other respiratory infections is unknown at this time,” said Dr. Pardis Zarifkar, lead author of the Department of Neurology, Rigshospitalet, in Copenhagen.

Nevertheless, the risk of the different neurological diseases was not higher in patients with positive COVID-19 than in people who had been diagnosed with influenza or other respiratory illnesses.

Patients with COVID-19 did have a 1.7-fold increased risk of ischemic stroke compared with hospitalized patients with influenza and bacterial pneumonia older than 80 years.


The frequency of other neurodegenerative diseases such as multiple sclerosismyasthenia gravis, Guillain-Barré syndrome, and narcolepsy did not increase after COVID-19, influenza, or pneumonia.

“We found support for an increased risk of being diagnosed with neurodegenerative and cerebrovascular disorders in COVID-19 positive patients compared to negative patients. It is reassuring that, apart from ischemic stroke, most neurological disorders do not appear to be more common after COVID-19 than after influenza or community-acquired bacterial pneumonia,” added Dr. Zarifkar.

Finally, the researchers noted that the findings will help improve understanding of the long-term sequelae and effects of COVID-19 on the body.

Leave a Comment

This site uses Akismet to reduce spam. Learn how your comment data is processed.