Shakedown Social

Mason Loring Bliss(I'm copying this from LinkedIn, from Sean Mullen, an Associate Professor at the University of Illinois. I'll link to Sean if it turns out he's also in the Fediverse. I've asked him.)Two years later—and the cardiovascular damage from Long COVID is still measurable.A new study tracked people with Long COVID two years after their initial infection. These weren’t isolated anecdotes. Researchers used gold-standard physiological tools—microneurography, echocardiography, vascular imaging, and cardiopulmonary exercise testing—to quantify what many patients have been describing all along.The findings are not subtle:1. Sympathetic Nervous System Overdrive Participants with Long COVID had 77% more sympathetic nerve bursts than matched controls. That’s not “just anxiety”—that’s measurable autonomic dysregulation.2. Vascular Dysfunction Their arteries showed 26% lower flow-mediated dilation, a well-established marker of endothelial dysfunction and cardiovascular risk.3. Subclinical Heart Damage Strain imaging revealed subtle impairments in cardiac function—often missed by routine exams but consistent with early-stage heart failure patterns.4. Impaired Exercise Capacity On a maximal effort test, Long COVID patients reached *21% lower oxygen uptake*, despite comparable effort. It wasn’t deconditioning. It was systemic impairment.5. Cellular Markers of Injury and Stress Blood tests revealed increased oxidative stress, lower antioxidant activity, and higher levels of extracellular vesicles from damaged endothelial cells.Yes, the study had limitations:* Small sample (18 Long COVID, 19 controls) * Cross-sectional design (not causal) * Focused only on those with severe acute COVID * Did not include pulmonary function or key inflammatory mediatorsBut even with these limitations, the findings are consistent with a growing body of evidence: Long COVID is not just about fatigue—it’s a multi-system condition with real, measurable physiological consequences.Why does this matter?Because the world continues to downplay or ignore this. And yet, the biological signals are loud. We cannot “walk this off.” We need research. We need scalable interventions.One promising candidate? IMST (Inspiratory Muscle Strength Training) Just 5 minutes a day of breathing against resistance has shown promising results in reducing sympathetic overdrive and improving vascular health. It’s currently being tested in randomized trials for Long COVID.---If you’re a clinician, researcher, or policy leader: This is your call to engage. Let’s stop debating whether Long COVID is “real,” and start directing our attention—and funding—toward understanding and treating it.I’m happy to connect with others working in this space. Thanks to Nathaniel Jenkins, PhD, FAHA for pointing out this important paper.<a href="https://partychickens.net/tags/LongCovid" class="mention hashtag" rel="nofollow noopener" target="_blank">#LongCovid</a> <a href="https://partychickens.net/tags/CardiovascularHealth" class="mention hashtag" rel="nofollow noopener" target="_blank">#CardiovascularHealth</a> <a href="https://partychickens.net/tags/PublicHealth" class="mention hashtag" rel="nofollow noopener" target="_blank">#PublicHealth</a> <a href="https://partychickens.net/tags/COVID19" class="mention hashtag" rel="nofollow noopener" target="_blank">#COVID19</a> <a href="https://partychickens.net/tags/ExerciseScience" class="mention hashtag" rel="nofollow noopener" target="_blank">#ExerciseScience</a> <a href="https://partychickens.net/tags/HealthTech" class="mention hashtag" rel="nofollow noopener" target="_blank">#HealthTech</a> <a href="https://partychickens.net/tags/VascularHealth" class="mention hashtag" rel="nofollow noopener" target="_blank">#VascularHealth</a><a href="https://journals.physiology.org/doi/abs/10.1152/ajpregu.00055.2025" rel="nofollow noopener" translate="no" target="_blank">https://journals.physiology.org/doi/abs/10.1152/ajpregu.00055.2025</a>

Flipboard Culture DeskSteroids have been used by Hollywood actors who want to get buff for decades — since the 1970s, when the action hero archetype emerged with movies like "Rocky" and "The Incredible Hulk" TV show. Consequence discusses whether these drugs are really being used by pretty much everyone in Hollywood, and if it even matters.<a href="https://flip.it/0DDMxo" rel="nofollow noopener" translate="no" target="_blank">https://flip.it/0DDMxo</a><a href="https://flipboard.social/tags/Hollywood" class="mention hashtag" rel="nofollow noopener" target="_blank">#Hollywood</a> <a href="https://flipboard.social/tags/Movies" class="mention hashtag" rel="nofollow noopener" target="_blank">#Movies</a> <a href="https://flipboard.social/tags/ExerciseScience" class="mention hashtag" rel="nofollow noopener" target="_blank">#ExerciseScience</a> <a href="https://flipboard.social/tags/Bodybuilding" class="mention hashtag" rel="nofollow noopener" target="_blank">#Bodybuilding</a> <a href="https://flipboard.social/tags/Cinema" class="mention hashtag" rel="nofollow noopener" target="_blank">#Cinema</a> <a href="https://flipboard.social/tags/Film" class="mention hashtag" rel="nofollow noopener" target="_blank">#Film</a>

SenFun muscle facts I've learned:• Nearly every muscle fiber runs the whole length of the muscle. Muscle fiber == muscle cell. So my bicep is made up of ~1mil muscle cells all of them ~9″ long.• Muscle cells have multiple nuclei— in fact they have 100s, some even 1000s. Cellular protein synthesis requires a nucleus, and muscles do that all the time. With how long they are, they need *lots* of nuclei as infrastructure for protein synthesis.<a href="https://mas.to/tags/muscle" class="mention hashtag" rel="nofollow noopener" target="_blank">#muscle</a> <a href="https://mas.to/tags/exercise" class="mention hashtag" rel="nofollow noopener" target="_blank">#exercise</a> <a href="https://mas.to/tags/exerciseScience" class="mention hashtag" rel="nofollow noopener" target="_blank">#exerciseScience</a>

Jeremy Drinks Coffee ☕<a href="https://mas.to/tags/introductions" class="mention hashtag" rel="nofollow noopener" target="_blank">#introductions</a> I'm Jeremy and am happy to be here. I live in northeast <a href="https://mas.to/tags/Pennsylvania" class="mention hashtag" rel="nofollow noopener" target="_blank">#Pennsylvania</a> USA. I'm a <a href="https://mas.to/tags/college" class="mention hashtag" rel="nofollow noopener" target="_blank">#college</a> professor at a small, <a href="https://mas.to/tags/liberalarts" class="mention hashtag" rel="nofollow noopener" target="_blank">#liberalarts</a> school (disciplines: <a href="https://mas.to/tags/athletictraining" class="mention hashtag" rel="nofollow noopener" target="_blank">#athletictraining</a> and <a href="https://mas.to/tags/exercisescience" class="mention hashtag" rel="nofollow noopener" target="_blank">#exercisescience</a>). I'm typically very unserious. I love <a href="https://mas.to/tags/movies" class="mention hashtag" rel="nofollow noopener" target="_blank">#movies</a>, <a href="https://mas.to/tags/TheFlopHouse" class="mention hashtag" rel="nofollow noopener" target="_blank">#TheFlopHouse</a> podcast, and the <a href="https://mas.to/tags/90DayFiance" class="mention hashtag" rel="nofollow noopener" target="_blank">#90DayFiance</a> universe. I am serious about supporting <a href="https://mas.to/tags/justice" class="mention hashtag" rel="nofollow noopener" target="_blank">#justice</a>, <a href="https://mas.to/tags/civilrights" class="mention hashtag" rel="nofollow noopener" target="_blank">#civilrights</a>, <a href="https://mas.to/tags/antiracism" class="mention hashtag" rel="nofollow noopener" target="_blank">#antiracism</a>, <a href="https://mas.to/tags/LGBTQ" class="mention hashtag" rel="nofollow noopener" target="_blank">#LGBTQ</a>, <a href="https://mas.to/tags/DEI" class="mention hashtag" rel="nofollow noopener" target="_blank">#DEI</a>, and <a href="https://mas.to/tags/progressive" class="mention hashtag" rel="nofollow noopener" target="_blank">#progressive</a> <a href="https://mas.to/tags/liberal" class="mention hashtag" rel="nofollow noopener" target="_blank">#liberal</a> causes.Hope to engage with reasonable and interesting people here.

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