UF Study: Post-COVID Mortality Risk May Be Caused by Effects of High Inflammation During Illness

A University of Florida study sheds new light on the reason people who recover from a bout of severe COVID-19 are still at increased risk for death in the year after their recovery. The culprit may be high levels of inflammation during the initial illness.

The UF team previously reported that patients who recovered from severe COVID-19 have more than twice the mortality risk within the year following their illness than people who have not contracted the virus. The new findings, published in the journal Frontiers in Medicine, are the first to use biomarkers to help explain the increased risk.

“This study helps to clarify why people who are hospitalized with COVID-19 end up being at high risk for death after they recover. The findings also take us to a new level of understanding of not just the mechanism for illness, but also a potential treatment that may prevent deaths among these patients,” said Arch G. Mainous III, Ph.D., the study’s lead investigator and a professor in the department of health services research, management and policy at the UF College of Public Health and Health Professions, part of UF Health, the university’s academic health center.

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