April 19, 2023 – COVID can greater than triple the possibility of developing type 2 diabetes inside a yr of infection, in accordance with a latest Canadian study.
Men who had even a gentle case of COVID were significantly more more likely to be diagnosed than uninfected men Type 2 diabetesa chronic disease that affects the body's ability to convert food into energy. Women weren't at increased risk unless they were severely sick.
Both men and girls with severe cases were at highest risk. People hospitalized for COVID treatment had greater than twice the chance of developing type 2 diabetes, and people admitted to intensive care had greater than 3 times the chance.
“This is definitely concerning in terms of the long-term consequences,” said researcher and University of British Columbia professor Naveed Z. Janjua, PhD, to The New York Times“With a respiratory infection, you usually think, 'Seven or eight days and I'm done with it, that's it.' [But] here we see lifelong repercussions.”
The study was published on Tuesday in JAMA network opened. The researchers analyzed health data from 629,935 people from 2020 and 2021, 20% of whom were diagnosed with COVID during that period. Most people in the study were unvaccinated because vaccines were not yet widely available at the time. Health information came from a registry maintained by health authorities in British Columbia, Canada. The follow-up period was 257 days.
The authors warned that their results could not say that COVID causes type 2 diabetes; rather comment Pamela B. Davis, MD, PhD, said in a study published alongside the study that the connection makes sense because COVID is known to affect the pancreas, which produces insulin. Insulin is a hormone that helps the body regulate blood sugar – a process that doesn't work properly in people with diabetes.
“Such stress can result in diabetes in a patient who's prediabetic,” writes Davis, who was formerly dean of the medical school at Case Western University in Ohio and is now a professor.
The researchers estimated that the increasing variety of diabetes diagnoses following COVID infection could increase the disease rate in the overall population by three to 5 percent.