People who survived COVID-19 — including some older adults — have a higher risk for digestive diseases, a new study finds.
Digestive diseases include gastrointestinal (GI) dysfunction, peptic ulcers, gastroesophageal reflux disease (GERD), gallbladder disease, nonalcoholic liver disease and pancreatic disease.
Data was derived from adults ages 3 to 73 in the UK Biobank, according to the study published Jan. 10 in BMC Medicine.
The researchers compared the rates of digestive diseases among 112,311 COVID-19 survivors 30 or more days after infection, 359,671 people in a comparison group and data from a control group of 359,671 people from 2017 to 2019 (before COVID-19 occurred). All of the people were located in the United Kingdom. The researchers followed up on people for a median of 8.4 months. People with COVID-19 were infected between January 2020 and October 2022.
Compared to the controls, COVID-19 survivors had a 38% higher risk for GI dysfunction, 23% higher risk for peptic ulcers, 41% for GERD, 21% for gallbladder disease, 35% for severe liver disease, 27% for nonalcoholic liver disease and 36% for pancreatic disease. The risk for developing GERD, specifically, went up the more severe the case of COVID-19. The risk for having GI dysfunction or GERD didn’t go down after a one-year follow-up. People who had COVID once and were later reinfected had a higher chance of having pancreatic disease.
“We found that even in people with mild COVID-19 symptoms who did not receive hospitalization treatment, the risks of GI dysfunction, peptic ulcer disease, GERD and nonalcoholic fatty liver disease were evident, while the risks of severe liver disease, IBD and biliopancreatic diseases were not,” the authors wrote.
What causes the increased risk for the GI ailments? It may be fecal-oral viral transmission, interactions between the SARS-CoV-2 spike protein and angiotensin-converting enzyme 2 (ACE2) receptors in the digestive tract, or inflammation associated with the virus.
“This underscores the significance of ensuring that healthcare systems are equipped to provide appropriate care to this population of mild cases, as well as varying degrees of COVID-19 severity,” the authors wrote.
