Sunshine Sentinel

University of Florida researchers have been examining human lung tissue since last summer to get a better idea about COVID-19 and its differing effects on suffers of the disease, according to news reports in South Florida.

The research involved lung samples from more than 33 donors with numerous COVID-19 risk factors, including smoking, obesity and diabetes, according to separate news stories published Oct. 4, by WPLG Local 10 in Pembroke Park and Oct. 5, by MDMH News in Coral Springs.

Matthew Schaller, assistant professor in the University of Florida's Pulmonary, Critical Care & Sleep Medicine Division | pulmonary.medicine.ufl.edu/

The samples were cryopreserved, reduced to very low temperatures to preserve the living cells and tissues, something that makes the research unique, Matthew Schaller, assistant professor in the University of Florida's pulmonary, critical care and sleep medicine division, said.

“What makes our system unique is that we were able to cryopreserve that lung so we were able to freeze it back and then thaw it out again, and it’s still viable and living and able to be infected so that makes a scalable model because we can repeatedly go back and assess the same donor over and over again,” Schaller said in both news stories.

Understanding lung function in COVID-19 patients could lead to better treatment therapies, based on a sufferer's health and other factors.

Both news stories also referred to an unrelated New England Journal of Medicine report that suggested getting off antidepressants cause most in the study to relapse back into depression.

The U.K. study, released by the journal late last month, studied almost 500 patients suffering from chronic depression and found that more than half who stopped using their medication reported a resumption of symptoms within a year.

The study included a randomized, double-blind trial with the adult patients treated in 150 general practices. All of the patients had a history of at least two depressive episodes, or they had been taking antidepressants for 2 years or longer.

"The primary outcome was the first relapse of depression during the 52-week trial period, as evaluated in a time-to-event analysis," the study said. "Secondary outcomes were depressive and anxiety symptoms, physical and withdrawal symptoms, quality of life, time to stopping an antidepressant or placebo, and global mood ratings."

Of the 478 enrolled in the trial, 73% were women.