Four weeks after testing positive for COVID-19 and feeling symptoms, women encountered recurring symptoms more often than men, according to a study published June 21 in Current Medical Research and Opinion.
The research compared 35 studies that tracked men and women's persistent COVID-19 symptoms between December 2019 and May 31, 2021, before vaccines were widely available.
Of the 1,393,355 study participants, female patients were more likely than male patients to experience depression; ear, nose, or throat; musculoskeletal; and respiratory symptoms. Men were more likely to experience acute kidney injury.
Women also were more likely to have dermatological, gastrointestinal and neurological long COVID-19 symptoms.
The article's authors wrote that "the size of female cohorts and sex-disaggregated data analysis and reporting are insufficient in medical research" and said further studies tracking long COVID-19 should report differences among sexes.
Researchers are continuing to evaluate the potential causes of long COVID-19, including probes into the possibility of a perpetual virus, blood vessel damage and the immune system struggling to bounce back.