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4 reviews

• 5/ 10Borderline

  A prospective observational study of post-COVID-19 chronic fatigue syndrome following the first pandemic wave in Germany and biomarkers associated with symptom severity

  Kedor C, Freitag H, Meyer-Arndt L, et al. · Nature Communications · 2022

  Careful early evidence that some people meet strict ME/CFS criteria after mild COVID-19, but the headline blood-marker links to grip strength appear to pool men and women, and most weaken or vanish in women alone.

  Self-referred patients; cannot show how commonNo healthy or recovered controls measuredStrict criteria, with a real medical work-up
• UnconvincingPreliminary

  ADDRESS-LC: phase 2 trial of bezisterim for neurological symptoms of long COVID (topline results)

  BioVie Inc. · Company press release and investor presentation · 2026

  Bezisterim did not clearly beat placebo on any of 22 measures across the whole trial; the reported benefits come from unadjusted, selectively shown subgroups, so they are a hypothesis for a new trial, not evidence the drug works.

  No measure improved clearly in the whole trialBenefits only in subgroups, uncorrected for many testsRandomised, blinded, placebo-controlled, 203 patients
• 5/ 10Borderline

  Muscle abnormalities worsen after post-exertional malaise in long COVID

  Appelman B, Charlton BT, Goulding RP, et al. · Nature Communications · 2024

  Patients' muscle differed from that of recovered, more active controls at baseline, but the claim that abnormalities worsen after post-exertional malaise is mostly unsupported: most changes were shared with controls or never tested between groups.

  Muscle damage claims lack the between-group testTissue scoring yes/no, blinding to time point unclearControls did the same exercise test and biopsies
• 3.5/ 10Fails

  Effect of subcutaneous lidocaine–hydroxypropyl-β-cyclodextrin on quality of life in patients with post-COVID condition

  Oostwouder CJ, Vos K, Lutke Schipholt IJ, et al. · eClinicalMedicine · 2024

  No control group, no blinding and only subjective outcomes, so the reported improvement cannot be separated from placebo, regression to the mean or natural recovery.

  No control groupCompletely unblindedSample size adequate for the design