Sociodemographic factors, biomarkers and comorbidities associated with post-acute COVID-19 sequelae in UK Biobank

Marta Alcalde-Herraiz, Shahed Iqbal, Jeffrey J. Wallin, Yunhao Liu, Wildaliz Nieves, Mark Berry, Marti Catala, Daniel Prieto-Alhambra () and Junqing Xie
Additional contact information
Marta Alcalde-Herraiz: University of Oxford
Shahed Iqbal: Gilead Sciences, Inc.
Jeffrey J. Wallin: Gilead Sciences, Inc.
Yunhao Liu: Gilead Sciences, Inc.
Wildaliz Nieves: Gilead Sciences, Inc.
Mark Berry: Gilead Sciences, Inc.
Marti Catala: University of Oxford
Daniel Prieto-Alhambra: University of Oxford
Junqing Xie: University of Oxford

Nature Communications, 2025, vol. 16, issue 1, 1-11

Abstract: Abstract Long-term sequelae of COVID-19 remain critical public health concerns, with limited therapeutic options available. We conducted two case-control studies among COVID-19 infected individuals in the UK Biobank to explore the association of sociodemographic factors, clinical biomarkers, and comorbidities with the risk of two key phenotypes: Long COVID (LC, defined by patient self-report symptoms) and post-acute complications of SARS-CoV-2 infection (PACS, defined by clinical diagnosis), separately. Our study included 8,668 participants in the LC cohort (32% classified as cases) and 108,407 in the PACS cohort (with 2% being cases). Findings showed that age and sex were associated with both LC and PACS but in opposite directions. Additionally, obesity, socioeconomic deprivation, elevated C-reactive protein, triglyceride, vitamin D, HbA1c, cystatin C, urate, and alanine aminotransferase, and decreased HDL cholesterol and IGF-1, as well as CKD and COPD, were associated with LC. Most of these factors were also significant for PACS, except for alanine aminotransferase and vitamin D. These findings have potential mechanistic implications for the distinction between LC and PACS and can guide clinical implementation of identifying high-risk groups for targeted vaccination or other public health mitigation strategies.

Date: 2025
References: Add references at CitEc
Citations:

Downloads: (external link)
https://www.nature.com/articles/s41467-025-62354-0 Abstract (text/html)

Related works:
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:nat:natcom:v:16:y:2025:i:1:d:10.1038_s41467-025-62354-0

Ordering information: This journal article can be ordered from
https://www.nature.com/ncomms/

DOI: 10.1038/s41467-025-62354-0

Access Statistics for this article

Nature Communications is currently edited by Nathalie Le Bot, Enda Bergin and Fiona Gillespie

More articles in Nature Communications from Nature
Bibliographic data for series maintained by Sonal Shukla () and Springer Nature Abstracting and Indexing ().