One of the problems with fighting the coronavirus pandemic is that some survivors will continue to experience severe, sometimes debilitating, symptoms that persist for many months after infection.
One of these long-distance symptoms is a condition called postural orthostatic tachycardia syndrome (POTS), a disorder of the nervous system that causes people’s heart rates to jump out of control. But a new clinical study published in the Journal of the American College of Cardiology on Monday, it suggests that treatment for the long-distance symptom may be coming – pending FDA approval – in the form of a heart failure drug called ivabradine.
POTS is best characterized by causing extreme heartbeats when the body is at rest – on the order of 100-115 beats per minute, explain the researchers at the University of California at San Diego behind the study in a press release. But it also causes brain fog, weakness, fatigue, blurred vision and tremors, so if POTS can be defeated, it can also relieve a list of other long-distance COVID symptoms.
The clinical trial found that taking ivabradine twice daily for one month reduced patients’ resting heart rate to 77 beats per minute. But it is important to note that the study volunteers were recruited from cardiology clinics between 2018 and 2020 – therefore, their POTS were not linked to the coronavirus. Still, the team suspects the drug will help long-haulers in the same way.
“In our contemporary practice, we are seeing patients who were previously infected with COVID-19 showing symptoms consistent with POTS,” said Dr. Jonathan Hsu, a cardiologist at UC San Diego Health, in the statement. “Given the similarities, this study raises the question of whether ivabradine therapy can help patients who experience similar symptoms after a COVID-19 infection and also provides an important area for future studies.”
It is reasonable to assume that the FDA would like to see clinical research that was explicitly conducted on long-distance coronaviruses that show symptoms similar to those of POTS before approving the use of the drug. But given the apparent triumph with this first study, that type of research may be coming soon.