Some Researchers think COVID-19 May Cause Diabetes

 

Everybody has heard that diabetes is a risk factor for COVID-19. Diabetics are not more likely to get the disease, but they are more likely to develop a serious case if they're infected.

But some researchers are seeing evidence that the direction may go both ways. In other words, a COVID-19 infection may cause diabetes in previously unafflicted individuals.  

One study Published in Nature in January, suggests there is a 50%-75% "excess burden" of diabetes on the healthcare system for people who have been in the ICU with COVID-19. The hypothesis is that COVID-19 may damage our insulin-producing cells.

Some researchers are skeptical of the idea that COVID-19 causes diabetes. The problem is that these studies are observational rather than experimental, and sometimes the observations disagree.  So for example, a

multicenter regional study conducted in the United Kingdom and published in Diabetes Care in August showed that, compared with a typical, pre-pandemic year, researchers estimated an 80% increase in new type 1 diabetes cases during the pandemic

But on the other hand,

a much larger study conducted in Germany, also published in Diabetes Care, demonstrated that type 1 diabetes incidence in 2020 followed the increasing trend observed between 2011 and 2019, without upward or downward deviation, indicating no short-term influence of the COVID-19 pandemic

So as with everything else about the pandemic, we just don't really know what's going on. 

But this idea that COVID-19 may cause other long term disease is worrisome, especially now that infection rates are affecting younger people. It's more evidence that we shouldn't be blithe about the diesease.

Image by Tesa Robbins from Pixabay 

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