Are you double jointed? Research shows that you are 30% more likely to develop lung disease
- People with double joints were also more likely to experience constant fatigue
- Long Covid has also been linked to irritable bowel syndrome and migraines
- READ MORE: Men and women suffer different Covid symptoms
Can you bend your fingers backward almost 90 degrees? You may be at greater risk of a long Covid-19 period.
This is evident from a fascinating study in Britain that indicates that people with double joints have a 30 percent increased risk of persistent Covid symptoms.
Researchers from Brighton and Sussex Medical School aren’t sure why the link exists – but people with flexible joints are generally prone to symptoms associated with a long Covid-19 epidemic, such as fatigue and aching bones.
Lead author Dr Jessica Eccles, reader in Brain-Body Medicine at BSMS, said: ‘Our research shows for the first time that the presence of generalized joint hypermobility (double joints) is a risk factor for long Covid-19, and that people with hypermobility will probably involve an even greater degree of fatigue.’
Can you bend your fingers backward almost 90 degrees? Or how about touching your head with your toes? If so, you may be at risk for long Covid-19…
Seven percent of Americans have reported experiencing a long bout of Covid-19 at some point, which amounts to about 18 million people
It is believed that people who are double-jointed or hypermobile are prone to wider health problems because their muscles are under constant strain and work overtime to compensate for the lack of stability, causing muscles to tire more quickly.
Hypermobility is believed to affect approximately three percent of the population worldwide.
Apart from older age, Covid-19 has long been linked to underlying health problems, including fibromyalgia, irritable bowel syndrome, migraines, allergies, anxiety, depression and back pain.
All of these risk factors have been independently associated with joint hypermobility, in which some or all of a person’s joints have an unusually large range of motion.
The researchers wanted to find out whether double joints in themselves could be a risk factor for long Covid-19.
They looked at 3,064 participants who had taken part in the Covid Symptom Study Biobank, all of whom had had Covid at least once.
The participants were surveyed in August 2022 and asked whether they had hypermobile joints, whether they had fully recovered from their last Covid infection and whether they experienced persistent fatigue.
Of the 914 participants who reported not having fully recovered from Covid, just under 30 percent (269) had generalized joint hypermobility.
After the researchers took into account things like age, gender and the number of Covid vaccinations received, joint hypermobility was strongly associated with not fully recovering from Covid.
The double joint also significantly predicted high levels of fatigue, which also turned out to be a key factor in the participant’s inability to fully recover.
Because the study was observational, the researchers said no firm conclusions can be drawn about whether joint hypermobility causes long-term Covid.
Other limitations included that most study participants were white and female, and the surveys were self-reported.
They also did not take into account other potentially influential factors, such as whether patients had pre-existing conditions such as fibromyalgia, which itself is characterized by fatigue and brain fog.
The research was published in the journal BMJ Public Health.