Dr. Scott Gottlieb warned Thursday concerning the potential for long-term mind loss related to Covid, citing a brand new examine from the UK.
“In brief, the examine means that there could possibly be some long-term lack of mind tissue from Covid, and that might have some long-term penalties,” the previous FDA chief and CNBC contributor mentioned.
“You may compensate for that over time, so the signs of that will go away, however you are by no means going to regain the tissue if, in reality, it is being destroyed on account of the virus,” mentioned Gottlieb, who serves on the board of Covid vaccine-maker Pfizer.
The U.Ok. examine examined mind imaging earlier than and after a coronavirus an infection and appeared particularly on the potential impact on the nervous system.
Gottlieb defined to CNBC’s “The Information with Shepard Smith” that the destruction of mind tissue might clarify why Covid sufferers misplaced their sense of scent.
“The diminishment within the quantity of cortical tissue occurred to be in areas of the mind which can be near the locations which can be answerable for scent,” he mentioned. “What it suggests is that, the scent, the lack of scent, is simply an impact of a extra major course of that is underway, and that course of is definitely shrinking of cortical tissue.”
Disclosure: Scott Gottlieb is a CNBC contributor and is a member of the boards of Pfizer, genetic testing start-up Tempus, health-care tech firm Aetion Inc. and biotech firm Illumina.