{"id":7834,"date":"2021-11-05T15:16:53","date_gmt":"2021-11-05T15:16:53","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/aurelis.org\/blog\/?p=7834"},"modified":"2021-11-06T16:24:00","modified_gmt":"2021-11-06T16:24:00","slug":"41-no-psyche-in-covid-or-no-covid-without-psyche","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/aurelis.org\/blog\/minding-corona\/41-no-psyche-in-covid-or-no-covid-without-psyche","title":{"rendered":"41. No Psyche in COVID? \u2013 Or no COVID without Psyche?"},"content":{"rendered":"\n
To me, each relatively easily preventable death is shameful.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Since March of 2020, I have been trying to convince medical colleagues and scientists worldwide that the psyche plays a substantial role in COVID progression \u2015 in vain.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
What would be expected back then is that in due time, epidemiological studies would show relevant correlations. Flash forward to now. Extensive studies on correlations become feasible. And we see\u2026 relevant correlations. More and better studies in the future may reveal more.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
540.667<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n
This piece is based on an article of high scientific standard, documenting research from March to March over the \u2018first year of COVID\u2019 \u2015 pre-vaccination time. [*]<\/p>\n\n\n\n
This study examined data from about half a million hospitalized patients from 800 US hospitals, 18 years or older, with COVID-19, based on discharge electronic datasets and using ICD-codes. These don\u2019t capture for instance \u2018some feelings of anxiety\u2019 but only strong disorders that are recorded as such. In this study, severe COVID was diagnosed when a patient ended up in the intensive care unit, on mechanical ventilation, or died.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Note that these are observational data, in which causality is especially challenging to discern.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
These are the results in frequencies of comorbidities from the article:<\/p>\n\n\n\n<\/figure>\n\n\n\n
As to the impact on mortality per condition, we see as top three in the same study:<\/p>\n\n\n\n
obesity: surplus mortality of 30%<\/li>
anxiety and fear-related disorders: 28%<\/li>
diabetes with complications: 26%<\/li><\/ul>\n\n\n\n
Noteworthy is that depression and several other frequently associated conditions (such as essential hypertension, lipid metabolism disorders, and asthma) somewhat diminished<\/em> the mortality rate. This might be caused by the disorder and\/or the therapy, or some bias such as why people are being diagnosed as \u2018severely ill.\u2019 The human body\/mind is a highly complex entity. So are diagnosticians.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Anxiety<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n
Strikingly, anxiety shows a substantial correlation with severe COVID illness and death.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Does this mean that some politicians and (social and other) media who did their best to scare people to death in order to make them comply, or just to sell or be in the spotlights, succeeded too literally? This issue should not be easily rejected.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Of course, people may be anxious because of being in the hospital with COVID getting worse. It may also be reciprocal, as in a whirlpool. Also, anxiety being diagnosed before COVID-19 was not independently associated with death or mechanical ventilation during COVID-hospitalization. On the other side, this does not include much of the direct nocebo effect of being ill with \u2018the disease.\u2019<\/p>\n\n\n\n
As you can see, science is challenging, always. As an intellectual game, it\u2019s super. To know the truth, it\u2019s the best we\u2019ve got on the condition that the game is played adequately and with fervor.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
What we should do now: take mental profiles\/questionnaires and stress parameters such as salivary cortisol of people entering the hospital. This is a pretty blunt instrument but better than nothing for sure. A small Iranian study from March 2020 showed positive results in this. [**] Unfortunately, there has not been any replication of this study as far as I know.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Further remarks<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n
There is more in the data for whoever has some insight in psycho-somatics. If you want a deep dive, you might read my book: [see: \u201cYour Mind As Cure<\/a>\u201d].<\/p>\n\n\n\n
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