Frontiers in medicineSep 4, 2026

Ongoing energy and blood vessel problems in Long COVID patients not hospitalized

Long Covid Weekly Brief ↗PubMed ↗DOI ↗OA ↗

Updated Sep 5, 2026

Abstract

Sustained elevation of GDF-15 and VCAM-1 levels was observed in patients with Long COVID who did not improve over 6 months.

Long COVID is characterized by prolonged symptoms affecting quality of life after acute COVID-19.
Serum levels of GDF-15 and VCAM-1 were evaluated in 32 patients with persistent symptoms.
Patients who did not show improvement at 6 months had higher levels of both markers compared to those who did.
Most inflammatory cytokines measured were near detection limits and excluded from analysis.
The findings may indicate that tracking GDF-15 and VCAM-1 could provide insights into disease activity in Long COVID.

Simplified

Long COVID, a major post-acute infection syndrome (PAIS), characterized by prolonged or new-onset symptoms following acute COVID-19, critically affects patients' quality of life. Establishing easily measurable and objective biomarkers that reflect disease severity is essential for clinical management. This retrospective cohort study evaluated serum levels of growth differentiation factor 15 (GDF-15), a mitochondrial stress marker, and vascular cell adhesion molecule-1 (VCAM-1), a vascular endothelial stress marker, in 32 patients with Long COVID who presented with persistent systemic or neurological symptoms and had not required acute-phase hospitalization. Serum GDF-15, VCAM-1, and inflammatory cytokine levels were measured at the initial visit and at 3 and 6 months. Differences between patients who recovered at 6 months and those who did not (non-improved group) were analyzed using linear mixed-effects models (LMMs). Most inflammatory cytokines remained near their lower detection limits and were excluded from the longitudinal analysis. The LMMs revealed sustained elevation of both GDF-15 (p = 0.02) and VCAM-1 (p = 0.03) levels in the non-improved group. These findings suggest that longitudinal tracking of these two markers may offer clinically relevant insights into disease activity and treatment-resistant pathophysiology in mild acute-phase Long COVID.