Gonjilashvili, Ana, Tatishvili, Sophio · American heart journal plus : cardiology research and practice · 2024 · DOI
This review examines how COVID-19 can affect both the heart and mental health, and why these problems often occur together. The authors explain that inflammation, unhealthy lifestyle changes, and communication between organs may all play a role. They note that long COVID shares many symptoms with heart and brain problems—like fatigue, brain fog, dizziness, chest pain, and depression—which is why patients need care from multiple medical specialists.
This study is relevant to ME/CFS because many long COVID patients experience overlapping cardiovascular, cognitive, and psychiatric symptoms similar to ME/CFS, and the proposed mechanisms—inflammation, autonomic dysfunction, and inter-organ communication—are also implicated in ME/CFS pathophysiology. Understanding shared mechanisms between post-COVID conditions and ME/CFS may inform treatment strategies and highlight the need for integrated multidisciplinary care.
This review does not prove causality or establish the prevalence of these overlapping conditions in long COVID or ME/CFS populations. As a narrative synthesis rather than a systematic review or meta-analysis, it does not quantify effect sizes or establish the relative importance of proposed mechanisms. The study does not compare COVID-related conditions directly to ME/CFS or validate that the proposed pathways explain disease in all affected patients.
About the PEM badge: “PEM required” means post-exertional malaise was an explicit required diagnostic criterion for participant inclusion in this study — not that PEM was studied, observed, or discussed. Studies using criteria that do not require PEM (e.g. Fukuda, Oxford) are tagged “PEM not required”. How the atlas works →
The first block is for the primary paper and is the citation you should use in research work. The atlas-snapshot line only applies if you are specifically referring to this atlas’s reading of the paper on the date shown.
Primary citation
Gonjilashvili, Ana & Tatishvili, Sophio (2024). The interplay between Sars-Cov-2 infection related cardiovascular diseases and depression. Common mechanisms, shared symptoms.. American heart journal plus : cardiology research and practice. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.ahjo.2024.100364
BibTeX
@article{mecfsatlas-gonjilashvili-2024-interplay-between,
author = {Gonjilashvili, Ana and Tatishvili, Sophio},
title = {The interplay between Sars-Cov-2 infection related cardiovascular diseases and depression. Common mechanisms, shared symptoms.},
journal = {American heart journal plus : cardiology research and practice},
year = {2024},
doi = {10.1016/j.ahjo.2024.100364},
note = {PubMed: 38510743},
url = {https://www.mecfsatlas.com/evidence/gonjilashvili-2024-interplay-between},
}Atlas snapshot reference
ME/CFS Atlas. Generator v1 / Scanner v1.4 / policy v0.1. Accessed 2026-05-30. https://www.mecfsatlas.com/evidence/gonjilashvili-2024-interplay-between
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