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The Hague: Millions of people with high blood sugar may be at higher risk of TB, scientists said Friday, warning that diabetes and tuberculosis could combine to create the "storm" of disease.
Tuberculosis, a serious infection caused by bacteria in the lungs, kills almost as many people each year as HIV / AIDS and malaria combined.
According to the World Health Organization, nearly 10 million people have contracted TB in 2017 and experts fear that a global explosion of diabetes will put millions of others at risk.
A new study unveiled this week at a global conference on lung health in The Hague also suggests an additional cause for concern.
For the study, scientists from the London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine conducted blood tests on people with tuberculosis and diabetes in four countries: South Africa, Romania, Indonesia and Peru.
They then tested people with high TB and high blood glucose but below the diabetes threshold.
They discovered that blood samples from people without diabetes still contained molecules associated with people with TB / diabetes.
"This tells us that even before a person develops diabetes, the risk of developing TB is higher," AFP Ajay Kumar, director of research at the EU, told AFP on Friday. International Tuberculosis and Respiratory Disease, which was not involved in the study.
In some countries such as India, which is home to about a quarter of TB cases, anyone diagnosed with HIV should be automatically screened for diabetes, and vice versa.
Kumar said the study showed that countries should also look for tuberculosis in patients with high blood sugar.
He said that "millions" of people with high blood sugar could be at extra risk.
– & # 39; Perfect Storm & # 39; – The link between diabetes and tuberculosis is known, although poorly understood. Diabetes slows down the body's natural defenses, allowing TB to develop.
While tuberculosis infections and deaths have declined slightly over the last decade, type II diabetes has exploded.
This is a significant risk: about one in four people on Earth carry the TB bacteria in their body, and according to the WHO, more than 450 million people worldwide have type II diabetes.
Paul Jensen, director of policies and strategies at The Union, said the countries most concerned were those with high rates of latent TB and a growing diabetes problem: India, China, Pakistan and several countries of Southeast Asia.
"We describe this problem in terms of perfect storm – in economic development, already a huge reservoir of latent TB infection and here you have this problem of increasing diabetes," he said at the latest. AFP.
Although tuberculosis is curable, the treatment regimen has always been long, painful and has significant side effects.
"If you have TB and diabetes at the same time, the treatment is even more complicated," said Jensen. "You are more likely to contract TB in the future and die."
The global fight against tuberculosis has often been focused on preventing HIV / AIDS, as the disease, such as diabetes, increases the risk of tuberculosis.
Jensen and Kumar both said that much remained to be done to protect people against TB caused by diabetes.
"We have seen what happened with TB and HIV in sub-Saharan Africa, where HIV weakens the immune system and tuberculosis has soared," said Jensen.
"About eight percent of the global burden of TB is due to diabetes, but we do not see as much attention to TB diabetes as to diabetes."
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