Covid raises the risk of developing type 2 diabetes – 02/14/2023 – Health

A new study points out that Covid is a risk factor for developing so-called metabolic diseases, including type 2 diabetes. The risk of having diabetes after a Sars-CoV-2 infection can be up to 58% higher compared to those who never got infected.

In addition, the risk is almost three times greater in individuals who were not vaccinated at the time of contracting Covid in relation to those vaccinated: 74% of diagnoses were in unvaccinated patients against 26% occurring after vaccination.

The same risk drops by half (51%) in people who were vaccinated at the time of infection.

These are the main results of a survey conducted at the Smidt Heart Institute at Cedars-Sinai Medical Center in Los Angeles (California), which was published this Tuesday (14) in the specialized journal Jama Network Open.

To assess the risk of a post-COVID diagnosis of type 2 diabetes, researchers evaluated 23,709 adults who had at least one coronavirus infection between March 2020 and June 2022. Participants were included if they had a diagnosis of type 2 diabetes, hypertension and hyperlipidemia (high cholesterol) sometime up to 90 days after the confirmed Covid-19 picture.

Data were adjusted for sex, age, pre-existing conditions such as known cardiovascular risk, and the time of infection (whether it was before or during the omicron wave).

As a result, the risk ratio (in English, odds ratio or OR) of developing diabetes after contracting Covid was 1.58, that is, 58% higher compared to uninfected individuals. For hypertension and high cholesterol, the hazard ratio was not statistically significant.

Regarding the current status of vaccination, the risk ratio of having type 2 diabetes was 1.78 in non-vaccinated against 1.07 in vaccinated patients (with a 95% confidence interval).

Vaccination also decreased the risk of developing hypertension (46% lower) and high cholesterol (45% lower) in vaccinated individuals compared to non-vaccinated individuals.

For Alan Kwan, cardiovascular researcher at the institute and first author of the study, despite bringing some evidence about the increased risk of developing cardiovascular diseases and diabetes after a case of Covid, the data presented in the study cannot be considered as “absolute”.

“Because it is an observational study [quando são observadas as variações em uma determinada população sem que haja um grupo controle], we hesitate to give absolute hazard ratio rates precisely because this will be relative to each population. What these data show us is that there is clearly an increased risk of new post-infection diagnoses, which can be explored in future studies,” he said in an email interview with Sheet.

As type 2 diabetes is one of the main factors that can lead to cardiovascular diseases in the future, also producing an increased risk of developing an aggravated picture of Covid and other infectious diseases, the researcher points out that vaccination can help to reduce this risk, also protecting against diabetes diagnosis.

“The study thus suggests that vaccination against Covid before infection may also offer protection against the risk of developing type 2 diabetes, although the mechanisms involved in this protection -whether, for example, reducing the action of the virus in the body or blocking the pathways of inflammation that can lead to diabetes—have not yet been fully elucidated,” he said.

In Brazil, according to data from Vigitel (Surveillance of Risk and Protection Factors for Chronic Diseases by Telephone Survey) from 2021, there are 9% of the adult Brazilian population living with diabetes, or just over 15 million people.

As the survey was affected during the pandemic by budget cuts and the difficulty of telephone access to respondents, this number may still be underestimated.

According to Kwan, this may also have been a factor that influenced the research itself, since the data were collected from reports of the diagnosis of some of the metabolic conditions pre- and post-exposure to the coronavirus.

“As during the pandemic it is natural that there was a lower demand for non-emergency medical services, the rate of new diagnoses of diabetes, hypertension and high cholesterol in the general population was not evaluated, but the comparison of patients with Covid or without previous infection and diagnosis of any of these diseases up to 90 days after infection”, he explained.

According to him, further studies may even help to understand the mechanisms by which the virus increases the occurrence of inflammation and diabetes. “We are still learning more and more about the long-term risks associated with Covid, but there is still a long way to go,” he said.