The world may still face a huge wave of chronic diseases caused by Covid-19. A US study of seniors has now revealed a 40% increased risk of developing diabetes after SARS-CoV-2 infection. The study was published a few days ago in the “Lancet Diabetes & Endocrinology” and largely confirms the first results of similar studies.
“There is growing evidence that people with Covid-19 can experience a range of secondary harms, including diabetes, in addition to the acute phase of a SARS-CoV-2 infection. However, the magnitude of the risk and the incidence of diabetes after acute illness have not been fully characterized,” wrote Yan Xie and Ziyad Al-Aly of the Saint Louis University Center for Epidemiology and Biostatistics and the US Department of Veterans Affairs, respectively. -Military in the newspaper.
Epidemiologists analyzed data from 181,280 U.S. facility policyholders for former military personnel with an average age of around 60 years (88% male) who received a positive test for SARS-CoV-2 between March 1, 2020 and September 30. 2021 and were still alive after 30 days.
More frequent use of medications to control blood sugar
A cohort of 4.2 million people of the same age with similar characteristics without Covid-19 disease from the same period and a second group of about 4.2 million people before the pandemic served as comparison groups. The deciding factor should be the recurrence of type 2 diabetes within a year.
“In the period after the acute illness, people with Covid-19 showed an increased risk of developing diabetes (up to 40%) and more new cases (13.46 more new patients per 1,000 people in a year) compared to the group current comparison) and a higher frequency of taking blood sugar medications (up to 85%).”
The risks depend on the severity of the disease
The risks are apparently dependent on the severity of the recovered Covid 19 disease. For people not hospitalized for Covid-19, there were 8.28 additional cases of diabetes per 1,000 people in one year. The following year, inpatients with Covid-19 had 56.93 new cases of diabetes per 1,000 people than in comparison groups, and among 1,000 people after Covid-19 therapy in intensive care units there were even 89.06 more. diabetes cases.