COVID-19 boosts blood sugar and increases mortality risk

EJ Mandel
HealthDay Reporter

Monday, 13 July 2020 (HealthDay News)-Body Stressed by Severe COVID-19 May Generate Abnormally High Values Blood glucose level, Even undiagnosed people Diabetes.. And it appears to be related to doubling the odds of dying at COVID-19, a Chinese researcher reports.

High blood glucose levels (glucose) measured at admission to the hospital were also associated with more serious illness and complications, according to researchers led by Dr. Yang Jin of Union Hospital in Wuhan and Tongji Medical University. China. Wuhan was the origin of the world Pandemic Of COVID-19.

As the researchers explained, diabetes has long been known to significantly increase the probability of severe and fatal COVID-19 in infected people. New coronavirus..

But what about the effects of high blood sugar, even in people who have not been diagnosed with diabetes?

Jin’s group examined the medical records of more than 600 patients who were treated in January and February at two hospitals in Wuhan for nearly a month. The average age of the patients was 59 years.

Researchers specifically looked at each patient’s blood glucose levels and severity associated with COVID-19 pneumonia, And patient outcome regarding disease severity and mortality. No patient was diagnosed with diabetes.

According to Jin’s team, a total of 114 patients died in the hospital from the disease. The mortality rate for men is 75% higher than for women.

High levels of fasting blood glucose were found to be highly predictive of death, researchers reported July 10 in a journal Diabetes..

That’s true whether the patient has it or not [COVID-19-linked] The team said it was more or less severe pneumonia,” suggesting that the effects of hyperglycemia on mortality risk are independent of how severe the patient’s respiratory illness is.

Approximately one-third (29%) of the total patient group fell into the category of very high fasting blood glucose-very high and, if consistent over time, these patients Type 2 diabetes.. An additional 17% were similar to those with “prediabetes”.

Studies show that patients in the very high blood sugar category are 2.3 times more likely to die from COVID-19 than those with the lowest blood sugar levels, even 71% higher in measurements that suggest prediabetes There was a risk of death.

The odds of dangerous complications of COVID-19 were also four times higher in people in the hyperglycemic category and 2.6 times higher in people with prediabetic blood sugar, a Chinese team said in a news release from Europe Diabetes Research Institute.

Diabetes expert Dr. Minisha Sood said Endocrinologist At Lennox Hill Hospital in New York. Reading a new study, she noted that even non-diabetic people could have spikes in blood sugar in response to serious illness.

“The rise in blood sugar due to illness is called stress Hyperglycemia“The stressed body produces hormones that trigger a reaction to diseases that raise blood sugar levels.”

However, such spikes usually do not occur in previously healthy individuals, Sood said.

“In spite of COVID-19 infection, if the blood glucose of patients who eventually succumb to COVID-19 is higher than that of other normoglycemic patients, the underlying system of stress hyperglycemia It may indicate that they are not as healthy as those who are not.”

Stress hyperglycemia could actually hit many patients in Wuhan, as 29% of patients landing in the highest blood glucose group were far higher than the estimated 12% diabetes prevalence in the Chinese population, according to a Chinese author There is a possibility. “

Based on the findings, the researchers advised adding meticulous blood glucose tracking to the list of tests doctors use to monitor the risk of patients fighting COVID-19.

Sood agreed.

“The bottom line is that everyone responds to the disease in a unique way,” she said, and “how to predict who might have worse consequences from a COVID-19 infection. Would be helpful. Hospitalization may be one of these predictors.”