Long Covid
Long Covid has been a huge topic of conversation throughout 2022. Many physicians cite long covid as a primary reason for continued mask / other covid spread mitigation efforts. Marty Makary and a number of other physicians concerned about accuracy in scientific studies poked at the methodology of a $1.15B long covid study funded by the NIH. If you're interested in an overview of many of the long covid studies check out this article in Nature.
Liver Disease
Discussions of Fatty Liver Disease peaked in June and remained high in July. A robust conversation in Reddit's physician sub-community attracted nearly 300 responses, "Anybody else seeing a shit ton of young cirrhotics?" Doctors are discussing the increasing prevalence of metabolic disorders in Americans due to diet and sedentary life cycle. This study shows that from 1999 to 2016 in the US annual deaths from cirrhosis increased by 65% and anecdotally most docs believe this trend has accelerated due to the Covid Pandemic.
I think in the next 10 years we will see cirrhosis much more often than many practicing physicians believe. NASH leading to cirrhosis will likely be more common that alcoholic cirrhosis or drug induced liver injury progressing to cirrhosis .
- Pulmonologist on Reddit
Chronic Constipation IBS-C
The American Gastroenterological Association released new guidance on the treatment for IBS-C, linked in the tweet below. GI doctors are one of the more prolific and active specialties on Twitter, so new guidance gets lots of discussion (also plenty of 💩 emojis). Ed El Sayed (@Rx_Ed), with more than 40,000 followers on Twitter, hosted a meet-up discussing tenapanor (brand name Ibsrela) as a treatment for IBS.
