Preliminary studies show that there is a possible link between severe COVID-19 infections and new cases of diabetes in some patients.
Doctors have known for a while that people with diabetes are more at risk of serious illness of the coronavirus, but now scientists are working to determine whether the virus could also cause some patients to develop new cases of diabetes. Research in the medical journal Diabetes, Obesity and Metabolism and other research raises concerns that the relationship could go both ways.
“Researchers are working like crazy to see if COVID attacks the pancreatic beta cells that make insulin,” said pediatrician Dr. Dyan Hes Tuesday on CBSN. “Some studies think so, but others have been repeated and say it isn’t attracted to the beta cell. We still can’t figure out why.”
Almost a year after the pandemic, effects of “long COVID” such as persistent respiratory complications and mild cognitive impairment have been documented in many patients as well as others neurological symptomsblood clots strokes, and heart and kidney damage. An analysis published in November 2020 found that of the 3,700 hospitalized patients in eight studies, as many as 14.4% were newly diagnosed with diabetes.
“As a pediatrician, we’ve certainly tracked cases of children who have had COVID or didn’t even know they had COVID, but who had type 1 diabetes,” Hes said.
Type 1 diabetes, she explained, is an autoimmune disease “in which your body stops making insulin.” Type 2 is “when your body is not responding to the insulin you have.”
Doctors in Wuhan, China, reported a link between COVID-19 and elevated blood sugar levels in April 2020.
He noted that there may be a link with the treatments some patients receive. “When you are treated in hospital for super sick patients, they get prednisone which also increases blood sugar. So does that contribute too?”
Italian scientists also investigated whether these elevated blood sugar levels could lead to diabetes, recognizing a previously understood link between long-term viral infections and the condition. That study, published last May, acknowledged that more research needed to be done before a conclusion could be drawn.
He said it was “not surprising” that a viral infection such as COVID-19 could cause type I diabetes, but the medical background of those patients needs to be studied. “We need to monitor the patients and see if they actually have a family history of autoimmune disease or type I diabetes, or was it just COVID? Was that the only risk factor?”
Leading diabetes scientists in the UK and Australia are establishing a global registry of coronavirus-related diabetes cases. In an article published in the New England Journal of Medicine, the researchers stated that it was “plausible” that the effects of COVID-19 on the body’s ability to metabolize glucose could complicate existing insulin levels or create new problems. which can lead to the development of diabetes.
Francesco Rubino, a professor of diabetes surgery at King’s College London, told the Washington Post that the registry already had more than 150 names and received responses from more than 350 institutions around the world. Rubino and other researchers suggested the worldwide study could “uncover new disease mechanisms.”
Dr. Hes, noting that the studies were preliminary, acknowledged the apparent connection, but said more research was needed to understand.
“It’s too soon to tell,” she said. “We need massive numbers to predict this.”