2023-04-19 10:02:00
Wednesday April 19, 2023
Risk increased by Corona Covid infection can probably trigger diabetes
Projections assume that by 2040 around 12 million people in Germany will have diabetes.
(Foto: picture alliance / Zoonar)
Half a million people in Germany develop diabetes every year. With the pandemic, it could now be significantly more. Canadian researchers find a connection between Covid-19 and diabetes. One group of people is particularly at risk.
Diabetes mellitus is a widespread disease in Germany and in many other western countries. Every year fall ill according to the current “German Health Report Diabetes 2023” in Germany about half a million adults are newly diagnosed with diabetes. The main causes are lack of exercise and obesity. According to a recent study, however, the pandemic has added another risk factor: a Covid 19 infection.
Previous studies have already indicated that corona increases the risk of diabetes. However, these were either very small or limited to certain groups of people, such as US military veterans, and thus may not represent the general population.
In order to investigate a possible connection between corona and diabetes, scientists at the University of British Columbia in Vancouver, Canada, have now analyzed data from almost 630,000 people who had undergone a PCR test for Covid-19. Study author Naveed Janjua and his team found that those who tested positive were significantly more likely to be diagnosed with type 1 or type 2 diabetes in the weeks and months that followed.
About every twentieth case of diabetes could be traced back to the previous Covid infection. “In other words, three to five percent of a hundred diabetes cases can be traced back to a Sars-CoV-2 infection,” writes Janjua, whose research results appear in the medical journal “JAMA Network Open” were published.
men particularly at risk
Men and women who had to be hospitalized for Covid had the highest risk of diabetes. In patients without a severe course, however, the risk only increased significantly in men. The research team suspects that this may be linked to a gender-specific immune response to the virus.
“Given the large number of people infected with Covid-19, these additional diabetes cases could lead to a very high burden on health systems,” warns Janjua. It is therefore particularly important to keep an eye on the long-term consequences of Corona. “It may be important to monitor people for diabetes after Covid-19 infection – particularly those who were severely ill during the acute phase of the infection.” Early detection is crucial for the treatment of diabetes.
According to the study, however, further investigations are needed to confirm that corona is the direct cause of diabetes. And the underlying mechanism of such a possible connection still needs to be researched. One possible mechanism is an autoimmune reaction that kills cells in the pancreas that are responsible for producing insulin, Janjua writes. “It is also suspected that Covid-19 could trigger chronic inflammation, as seen in people with obesity.”
Those: ntv.de
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