New diabetes cases linked to COVID-19

Researchers have been tracking a possible connection between COVID-19 and new-onset diabetes. As many as 14.4% of patients hospitalized with severe cases of infection have been affected, an international group of researchers reported in Diabetes, Obesity and Metabolism last November after analyzing data from more than 3,700 COVID-19 patients in eight different studies. It remains unclear whether the infection stimulates a blood-glucose imbalance that is already emerging or if it actually causes the condition. Many COVID patients who develop diabetes during or after their bout with the virus have a family history of the disease or other comorbidities, including obesity, while others are treated with the steroid dexamethasone, which is associated with elevated blood glucose levels. At the same time, some diabetes diagnoses in the COVID population have been assessed in patients with no predisposition or risk factors for the disease. Investigators do not know if the new diabetes cases are permanent, or just a temporary complication of COVID-19. They also are entertaining the possibility that coronavirus may have spawned a hybrid type of diabetes, with a different pathogenesis from known forms of the disease.