Covid may increase risk of type 2 diabetes, researchers find

Canadian researchers reported Tuesday that people infected with the coronavirus are significantly more likely to be diagnosed with type 2 diabetes within a year of being infected, compared to those not exposed to the virus. bottom.

Men were more likely than women to develop diabetes, scientists found. .

Researchers also found that people admitted to intensive care units were more than three times more likely to develop diabetes. The findings support growing evidence about the long-term effects of Covid.

“This is definitely a concern from a long-term outcome perspective,” said Naveed Z. Janjua, PhD, senior author of the paper and professor in the Department of Population and Public Health at the University of British Columbia.

“With a respiratory infection, you usually think, ‘I’m done in seven or eight days, that’s all,'” he added. “Here we see lifelong, lingering effects.”

of Research published in JAMA Network Openusing a large data set in British Columbia, diabetes diagnoses for over 125,000 individuals who tested positive for Covid in 2020 and 2021, and over 500,000 uninfected individuals during the same period. of diabetes diagnoses were compared.

A Covid vaccine became available in December 2020, but the majority of participants in both exposed and non-exposed groups were not fully vaccinated.

Dozens of studies have examined the link between Covid and diabetes, with most reporting an increase in post-infection diagnoses and an increased risk in men and critically ill patients.

However, the findings do not prove that the infection causes diabetes. Experts said patients who recovered from Covid, for example, could be more likely to be diagnosed with diabetes just because they had more regular care.

Still, Dr. Pamela Davis, a professor of medicine at Case Western Reserve University in Cleveland, said there is a plausible biological explanation for the link between the two conditions. co-authored a comment Accompany research.

It makes sense to ask, “Is this an actual increase, or is it something that accelerated diabetes, or was it just an early onset anyway?”

“But even if it’s just acceleration, this will come at a cost,” she added. All of this is accelerated by the days when is lost, and this is what worries me.”

According to Dr. Davis, the coronavirus infects insulin-producing beta cells in the pancreas, causing cell death. These cells are dotted with his ACE2 receptors that the virus uses as a route of entry.

“If you put pancreatic beta cells in a culture dish, the virus will eagerly infect these cells and destroy them,” she said.

Stress has also been implicated in the development of diabetes, and the Covid-associated inflammatory response is associated with beta-cell destruction. Severe Covid patients can also produce antibodies that attack the patient’s own body.

Other viral infections have also been linked to the development of diabetes, said Dr Janjua, whose pre-pandemic research focused on hepatitis.

“In the case of hepatitis C, there is strong evidence that infection is associated with increased risk of diabetes, cardiovascular outcomes, and many other non-hepatic systemic outcomes,” Dr. Janjua said. rice field.

A new study found that adults who test positive for the virus are 17% more likely to develop diabetes within a year of their positive test. Men were 22% more likely to develop diabetes compared with unexposed individuals.

Researchers matched infected and unexposed individuals by age and sex and made adjustments to account for differences in underlying health status, socioeconomic status, vaccination status, and other factors.

They calculated that about 3.4% of all new cases of diabetes could be attributed to Covid infection.For men, 4.75% of new infections were due to Covid.