People who have recovered from COVID-19 in the past year are 40% more likely to develop diabetes, according to a new study out this week.
The majority of the new diagnoses were for Type 2 diabetes, says the report, which was published in The Lancet Diabetes and Endocrinology journal. That means that 1% of all people who have had COVID during the course of the pandemic are likely to develop diabetes who otherwise would not, translating to millions of new patients.
It’s the latest in a growing string of worrisome health issues that develop for some people who were infected with COVID. Heart and kidney issues have been seen. Cognitive disfunction is common. ”Devastating” hair loss has been reported. Even a mild case of the disease can shrink your brain as much as it would over 10 years of aging.
And with this latest risk, some researchers say COVID could cause people to experience a new type of diabetes, which causes cells to increase, rather than lower, blood sugar.
The study looked at the records of 181,000 people who were diagnosed with COVID-19 in the past year, drawing from the Veterans Health Administration system. It compared those to more than 8 million people who didn’t have COVID. The new cases occurred even in people who had little to no risk factors for the disease.
This isn’t the first time COVID has been tied to diabetes. A study by the same researchers last year found COVID-19 isn’t just deadlier for people with diabetes, it’s also triggering the metabolic disease in many who didn’t previously have it. Even some children’s mild coronavirus cases can be followed by the swift onset of diabetes, scientists found.
That 2021 study found the risk to be roughly 6.5 additional diabetes cases for every 1,000 Covid patients who don’t end up in the hospital. For those who did, the probability jumped to 37 per 1,000—and it was even higher for patients who required intensive care.
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