It has been more than two years since long COVID manifested, and scientists are still far from settled on its cause.
However, based on common clinical manifestations and emerging research, clinicians have identified several contributors to long COVID symptoms.
Spike Protein Appears to Be the Leading Contributor
Spike protein can exist in the immune cells of long COVID patients for up to 15 months after infection.
The spike protein sits on the surface of the COVID-19 virus and is the key to breaking into cells and causing the virus to spread in organs and tissue.
An increasing number of studies are pointing to it (1, 2) as a contributing factor to long COVID….