One factor might be the increase in binge drinking during the pandemic, which I suspect fuels at least a certain fraction of anger and bitterness, along with the post-alcohol depression effect, in conjunction with economic and related stresses:
> "Using data from a national survey of U.S. adults on their drinking habits that found that excessive drinking (such as binge drinking) increased by 21 percent during the COVID-19 pandemic..."
The interesting part about this is that these health issues are also linked directly with chronic stress.
As one can imagine and many have experienced first-hand over the last few years, these have been stressful times. Perhaps more studies will come out regarding stress's effect on suppressing various functions of the immune system during a pandemic.
It has especially been interesting to see the mood shift as well. People are generally irritable, angry, anxious, and have regular panic attacks compared to years prior.
Which may also explain the statistics of substance abuse being at all time highs:
I wonder how many people just fell into alcohol, isolation induced depression, sedentary lifestyle, weight gain, etc... and that their health decline had nothing to do with COVID.
Does anyone have link to the full text? (can't access from my institution)
I ask because they seem to point to covid but there are lots of other factors that need to be considered that are quite obviously causal. For example obesity is on the rise[0], including a ~5% between 1999 and 2019. I think it would be unsurprising to anyone that obesity increased in a period where we all shifted to online and that regular exercise decreased. Especially true for younger people who typically are more active than the other groups (which could correlate to the difference in age groups). Stress is another big factor and I think even excluding the pandemic stress in our country is on the rise and the pandemic made it way worse.
There's obviously many more factors like this and since I can't see if the paper attempts to account for these I'm asking if someone else can answer this. But if these are not answered (as the link suggests) this is quite reckless to just state that a temporal correlation equates to the virus being a causal factor and ironically may increase said risk through the aforementioned factors.
Average stress levels went through the roof during the pandemic. Anxiety, depression, substance abuse, and other mental health problems that skyrocketed after 2020 could easily explain significant concentration and memory problems. Less confounding variables for physical problems, although things like average weight/BMI went way up so physical health factors aren't trivial to detangle either.
So here's a thing. Covid can cause neurological damage to the brain's frontal lobe, beyond that implicated by the loss of taste and smell.
Damage to the frontal lobe causes what Neal Stephenson referred to as "poor impulse control". I think the rise in violent incidents on airplanes is linked to this.
Additionally, poor impulse control leads to impulsive spending and purchasing behavior. Compounded by lockdowns and government checks, the situation is that consumers have upped their consumption way beyond their means; but some of this I suspect is neurological as opposed to psychological.
I think wild consumer demand just happens to be right now the most visible part of an iceberg of long lasting brain damage caused by covid, that our society is about to crash into.
This feels like another of those cases where some random guy on the internet intimates that with just a few moments' consideration they've uncovered a fatal flaw in a huge study (500k actual, 2m control) conducted and reviewed by experts.
Specifically to your implication - if you're suggesting the chronic stress came from having COVID, then it's a valid side-effect of the disease. OTOH if it's a background effect of the pandemic, then (naively) I'd suggest that with those cohort numbers it's naturally controlled for, as both the 500k and the 2m demographics both lived / are living through the same pandemic.
EDIT: if you're concerned with the tone of my first paragraph, please click on parent's profile to understand my phrasing choice.
I don't think its a Covid after effect. Don't continue memeing that. I suggest this is just what social isolation and economic depression does to memory and cognitive processing.
I think another effect we could be seeing is costochondritis, a pain/soreness which is known to be caused by viral infection and the stress of this year is potentially making worse.
Probably the long-term effects of COVID which causes exhaustion, brain fog, depression, etc... Combined perhaps by people having had time to reset and reflect on their life. Combined by the fact that the planet and democracy are dying.
These are theories of course, but I don't think one has to always look for very complex or technology related answers.
Stress reduces brain volume in similar areas, this effect could just be that people got extremely stressed out from having caught the pandemic virus. I'd like to see these studies take stress into account before I believe that covid hurts your brain.
Covid isolation is a compounding factor as well. Spending two years in social isolation with a precipitous decline in physical activity does quite a number on the body and brain.
The fact that many spent those years glued to dopamine mills like social media, video games, porn, etc. probably doesn't help with the concentration problems either.
I wonder how much of the covid related long term cognitive impairment is due to the marked lockdown induced increase in alcohol consumption[1]. I’m assuming that if deaths increased other than death bad outcomes probably increased too.
Edit: I see nothing in the submission showing there’s no substance abuse effect, clearly or otherwise.
Yes, to an extent. But many people are reporting symptoms like anxiety, depression, or brain fog, which, while could be caused by the virus, could also be caused by the pandemic. Fear, isolation, lack of social interactions can cause detrimental damage, and this should not be overlooked.
A) Is there any substantial evidence that supports it
B) If A, then how many individuals are affected?
If you have any material on this, I would gladly read it.
Personally, my mental health is horrible. Being in isolation away from friends/family (among all the other measures we have taken during this pandemic) have slowly deteriorated my mental & physical health.
It's also quite possible that the covid infection itself didn't cause those symptoms, but the experience of getting sick, having to quarantine, telling people you have a disease everyone is afraid of, etc. causes mental stress that leads to persistent depression and anxiety.
> "Using data from a national survey of U.S. adults on their drinking habits that found that excessive drinking (such as binge drinking) increased by 21 percent during the COVID-19 pandemic..."
https://news.harvard.edu/gazette/story/2022/01/covid-related...
Exercise and a healthy diet can benefit one's state of mind, in contrast.
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