Health Claims

Six months after having COVID, some people show changes in how their genes are switched on or off — especially in genes linked to brain and immune function — which might help explain long-COVID symptoms.

Six months after getting COVID, some genes in the body start acting differently, and this change is linked to problems with blood sugar, blood vessels, and the immune system.

People who had COVID-19 six months ago might have more random changes in their gene activity, which could mean their cells are aging faster or becoming less stable, possibly raising the risk for health problems down the line.

Getting COVID might make your body age a little faster, even six months later — scientists saw signs of this when they looked at biological markers in people who had the virus.

If you had COVID about six months ago, your body might still show changes in how your genes are turned on or off—especially in areas linked to brain function and a brain chemical called glutamate—compared to people who never got infected.

Lifting weights to build muscle can help your body store more sugar and improve blood sugar control over time, leading to lower fasting blood sugar and better insulin sensitivity.

Lifting heavy weights helps lower your blood sugar quickly by moving more glucose into your muscles, and over time this can improve your blood sugar control and cholesterol.

Long COVID symptoms seem a lot like what happens when someone ages faster than normal.

If you're new to lifting weights, how far you move during each rep — like doing full squats vs. half squats — changes how your muscles adapt, even if you spend the same total time lifting.

If new guys lift weights for 15 weeks using only part of the movement—focusing on the shorter muscle position—they build more muscle size in that specific area and get stronger at certain joint angles, according to this claim.

If new guys lift weights for 15 weeks using full movements, their leg muscles get longer and stronger at the fiber level compared to doing shorter movements—even if they spend the same amount of time lifting.

If untrained guys keep doing partial calf raises after they can't do full ones anymore, their calf muscles get slightly thicker — about 0.6 mm more on average — compared to stopping completely.

If guys who've never trained before do calf raises on a Smith machine twice a week for 10 weeks—going all the way up and down and pushing to exhaustion—they’ll see their calf muscles grow by nearly 7%.

If you're new to working out, stopping calf raises at the top (when your toes are pointed) leads to less muscle growth than keeping the set going with small up-and-down movements at the bottom (when your foot is pulled up). Over 10 weeks, the first way gives 6.7% growth, the second gives 9.6%.

If you keep doing partial calf raises after you can't do full ones anymore, you might boost muscle growth in your calf because you're doing way more work—about 87% more—than stopping completely.

If you're doing calf raises and keep going with smaller movements after you're too tired to do full ones, you might build more calf muscle—especially if you do those extra reps when your foot is pointed up.

If untrained guys do calf raises with their toes pointed up, they might build more muscle per rep because the muscle is stretched and working harder at that angle.

If untrained young guys do calf raises twice a week for 10 weeks and go all the way to muscle failure, their calf muscles get 8% thicker — adding extra partial reps after failure doesn’t help more if the total workout load is kept the same.

If untrained guys do calf raises that only go partway up after hitting failure on full calf raises, they can do about 64% more reps without increasing overall workload—because the shorter movement is easier on the muscles.

If untrained guys do calf raises and keep going with shorter movements after they can't do full ones anymore, their muscles grow twice as fast per set compared to stopping at failure with full movements — as long as the total workout load is the same.

If you're a guy new to calf workouts, doing extra partial reps after hitting failure on full calf raises doesn’t give you more muscle growth — it’s just as good as sticking to full reps, and both methods boost calf size by about 8% in 10 weeks.

The squiggly pattern in how wrist muscles respond to movement might not be mainly due to uneven muscle fibers, which goes against a recent idea scientists had.

The way muscles are thought to work when they're still doesn't seem to match how they actually perform when moving your wrist continuously — what we know from static tests might not apply when things are in motion.

Doing full up-and-down calf raises helps young women build slightly bigger calf muscles in 8 weeks, but going all the way down and up isn’t much better than doing shorter raises when it comes to growing the outer part of the calf.