Covid 19 coronavirus: Rising proof suggests virus might set off diabetes

lifestyle

February 4, 2021, 7:29 am2 minutes to read

A growing body of research suggests that the coronavirus could be a trigger for diabetes.

In the first few months of the pandemic, doctors at outbreak epicentres such as Wuhan and Italy suggested a link between new cases of diabetes and Covid-19.

In November, a study found that 14.4 percent of people who were seriously ill with coronavirus got diabetes.

There was also a case of an 18-year-old student in Germany who was asymptomatic while infected with coronavirus but felt listless a month later.

He was diagnosed with diabetes and his doctor suggested that his sudden onset could be related to the student’s infection, according to Nature magazine.

A nurse cleans a patient suffering from Covid-19 in the intensive care unit at the La Timone hospital in Marseille, southern France. Photo / AP

More than 150 documented cases of possible coronavirus-induced diabetes have now been reported worldwide. The cases were documented through coordinated efforts by more than 300 institutions, reports The Times.

The researchers behind the Covid-IAB registry said these virus-infected patients diagnosed with diabetes had consistently suffered poor results.

However, in some cases, researchers claim the virus affected the diabetes or even caused its onset.

Doctors have believed that a steroid used to treat severe cases of coronavirus could raise blood sugar levels.

In other cases, diabetes appears to appear months after the initial infection.

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One of the registry’s founders said the purpose is to find out if the diabetes cases are actually caused by Covid-19.

Professor Francesco Rubino, chairman of metabolic and bariatric surgery at King’s College London, told Times researchers that it would “decipher real Covid-induced diabetes, not a case that could be classified as unknown pre-existing diabetes.”

– with agencies