Diabetic after Covid-19: Corona infection significantly increases the risk of diabetes, especially for one group
Created: 04/06/2022, 11:58 am
By: Juliane Gutmann
Blood sugar can be measured with a blood glucose meter.
An important value in the context of diabetes treatment.
Covid-19 triggers the disease, researchers say.
© Jana Bauch/dpa
Everyone is currently infected with Corona.
Most of the time, Covid-19 is harmless, but late effects are possible.
Researchers report, for example, an increased risk of diabetes.
Are you already recovered and vaccinated?
Then you are one of the “super immune” among us.
Vaccination protects against severe disease progression by stimulating the immune system to produce corona antibodies.
Infection with the Sars-CoV-2 pathogen increases this effect.
In most cases, the disease heals without consequences.
But some people have to struggle with long-term corona effects.
Doctors then speak of Long Covid.
The risk of developing diabetes also increases after surviving Covid-19.
Researchers from the Clinical Epidemiology Center of the Saint Louis Health Care System in the US state of Missouri provide information about this.
In their study published in the journal
The Lancet
, they came to the conclusion
that a corona infection is associated with an increased risk of diabetes - even months after the disease has been overcome.
Corona vaccination survey
Corona patients develop diabetes more often than people who have not been infected
The two study leaders, Yan Xie and Ziyad Al-Aly, used the national databases of the US Department of Veterans Affairs for their analysis.
The data from over 181,000 study participants who tested positive for Covid-19 between March 1, 2020 and September 30, 2021 were taken into account.
This group was compared with more than four million people who did not suffer from corona during this period and a group of approximately the same size whose health data was recorded before the corona pandemic.
"
Participants in all three comparison groups were diabetes-free prior to entering the cohort and were followed for a median of 352 days,
" the study said.
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The study results were clear: According to the study, in the phase after the acute illness, people with Covid-19 had an increased risk of developing diabetes compared to the control groups.
This risk was still increased twelve months after the illness.
"The risk and burden of post-acute consequences increased depending on the severity of the acute phase of Covid-19, i.e. depending on whether the patients were unhospitalized, were hospitalized or were in the intensive care unit," the study leaders said.
So those who were seriously ill were more likely to develop diabetes after recovery.
The study leaders conclude from their study that post-acute Covid-19 care should include the detection and treatment of diabetes.
(jg)