[ad_1]
Some people infected with the new coronavirus might find more than COVID-19 on their medical records: a new diagnosis of diabetes.
It is at the start of the research and experts are still looking for definitive answers, but it seems that COVID-19 may trigger diabetes in some of the patients.
“The data absolutely indicates that it appears to be the case, and it is at a higher rate than what we first achieved,” said Dr. Robert Gabbay, Scientific and Medical Director of the American Diabetes Association. , TODAY.
“It’s very, very worrying. We are living in the midst of a diabetes epidemic and the last thing we need is something that is raising rates even more.
Up to 14% of people hospitalized for COVID-19 have developed newly diagnosed diabetes, according to an analysis of eight studies involving more than 3,700 patients in the United States, Italy and China.
More than 370 doctors from around the world have offered to share patient stories for a global COVID-19 diabetes registry, said Dr Francesco Rubino, senior registry investigator and chair of metabolic and bariatric surgery at King’s College of London UK.
He and his colleagues first reported new diabetes in COVID-19 last August in the New England Journal of Medicine.
At least 160 cases have been fully documented, with researchers preparing to analyze them to understand what is going on, he noted.
“Obviously, the vast majority of people with COVID-19 will not have diabetes,” Rubino said. “(But) I think there is a problem … even a relatively rare event can become significant when COVID is so prevalent.”
Some of the new diabetes cases seem to be in people who have no history of the disease and possibly no risk factors – people who “never expected to develop diabetes and now I have it.” Gabbay noted.
Why this can happen
The pancreas produces insulin, a hormone that helps control blood sugar. But in diabetes, blood sugar is too high – either because the body does not make insulin (type 1 diabetes) or because the body does not respond to it well (type 2 diabetes).
The new coronavirus can enter cells not only in the pancreas, but also in the intestine, liver, and fatty tissue – all of which are very important for maintaining normal sugar metabolism – and affect these organs, causing potential dysfunction, said Rubino.
In some people, “it seems like the virus is actually attacking the cells that make insulin and damaging them in a way that prevents enough insulin from being produced,” Gabbay added.
Since multiple organs can be disrupted at the same time, leading to complex changes in sugar metabolism, the symptoms doctors see in patients with COVID-19 do not look like typical type 1 or 2 diabetes, but potentially a “mix” of the two – maybe a new type of diabetes, Rubino said.
The severe type of COVID-19 may not even have to happen: A case study in Germany described a 19-year-old man who had asymptomatic coronavirus infection last spring and was diagnosed of diabetes several weeks later. The authors concluded that physicians “should be aware of the possibility of insulin-dependent diabetes as an acute complication” of COVID-19.
In search of answers
There is already a close relationship between diabetes and COVID-19: People with diabetes are more likely to have serious complications from the infection, and 40% of people who have died from COVID-19 have had diabetes, noted Gabbay.
But it will be a challenge to scientifically prove that COVID-19 causes new diabetes, Rubino noted.
“Any inflammatory condition can cause insulin resistance,” wrote Dr. Domenico Accili, director of the Center for Diabetes and Endocrinology Research at Columbia University in New York City, in a commentary in Nature Metabolism.
“We should not rule out the possibility that SARS-CoV-2 can cause diabetes, but neither should we make it from scratch if it is not supported by evidence.”
Rubino is hopeful that the Global COVID-19 Diabetes Registry can provide concrete answers, including whether diabetes associated with the novel coronavirus goes away after a patient is cured or if it can persist beyond infection.
Advice for new or recent COVID-19 patients is to be aware of symptoms of diabetes such as excessive urination, excessive thirst, blurred vision, fatigue, unexplained weight loss and, for women, yeast infections.
“There is no reason to panic about diabetes, but there are reasons to be vigilant and pay attention to the link between COVID and diabetes,” Rubino said.
[ad_2]
Source link