New study finds latest long Covid symptoms include hair loss and low sex drive

Females, younger people and those belonging to a black, mixed or other ethnic group are at greater risk of developing the condition. Photo / Getty Images

Hair loss and low sex drive have been added to the list of long Covid symptoms in a new study, taking the number of ailments to 62.

Doctors are unable to agree on a list of symptoms or a timeframe for how long post-infection constitutes the condition, whose definition has long divided opinion.

Loss of smell, shortness of breath and chest pain were the most common symptoms in the study, along with amnesia, an inability to perform familiar movements and hallucinations.

Patients were found to fit into one of three categories depending on how their symptoms manifested, either respiratory problems, mental health or cognitive issues. A broader range of symptoms supplemented this, say the researchers.

The study suggests females, younger people and those belonging to a black, mixed or other ethnic group are at greater risk of developing long Covid.

Suffering after three months

Additionally, people from poorer backgrounds, smokers and those who are overweight or obese, as well as the presence of a wide range of health conditions, were associated with reporting persistent symptoms.

Researchers from the University of Birmingham looked at the symptoms reported by people who were still suffering new health concerns more than three months after catching Covid.

Senior author Dr Shamil Haroon, an associate clinical professor in public health, led the project and his team analysed anonymised electronic health records of 2.4 million people in the UK gathered between January 2020 and April 2021.

Almost half a million had been infected with the virus and they were compared with the general health of those who had not had Covid.

People who tested positive for the virus reported 62 symptoms much more frequently 12 weeks after initial infection than those who had not contracted the virus, the study found.

The researchers also calculated that those with Covid were 6.5 times more at risk of anosmia (loss of smell) 12 weeks after catching the virus than those who were not infected.

The risk was four times greater for hair loss, 2.6 times for ejaculation difficulty, 2.4 times for low libido and 1.8-fold for a hoarse voice.

'Symptoms are extremely broad'

"This research validates what patients have been telling clinicians and policy makers throughout the pandemic – that the symptoms of long Covid are extremely broad and cannot be fully accounted for by other factors such as lifestyle risk factors or chronic health conditions," Haroon said.

"The symptoms we identified should help clinicians and clinical guideline developers to improve the assessment of patients with long-term effects and to consider how this symptom burden can be best managed."

Anuradhaa Subramanian, research fellow at the University of Birmingham and lead author of the paper, published in Nature Medicine, said: "Our data analyses of risk factors are of particular interest because it helps us to consider what could potentially be causing or contributing to long Covid.

"Women are, for example, more likely to experience autoimmune diseases. Seeing the increased likelihood of women having Long Covid in our study increases our interest in investigating whether autoimmunity or other causes may explain the increased risk in women.

"These observations will help to further narrow the focus on factors to investigate what may be causing these persistent symptoms after an infection, and how we can help patients who are experiencing them."