Is it possible for COVID-19 infectees to develop diabetes as a result of catching the virus?
Well, according to new research, people who had COVID-19 and recovered have a higher risk of diabetes.
This new information shows that there are many more long-term causes of getting COVID and many others are still being discovered as there are a lot of things scientists don’t know about the virus yet.
According to a large new study, those who recovered from COVID last year had a 40 percent higher risk of getting diagnosed with Type 2 diabetes when compared to those who did not test positive for COVID, which is a huge risk increase!
As per The Wall Street Journal, about 1 percent of those who were infected developed diabetes as a result of their experience with COVID and would not have otherwise.
The Mayo Clinic explains that Type 2 diabetes is an illness more common among adults that affects the pancreas which does not produce enough insulin and cells respond rather poorly to insulin to take in less sugar.
While there’s no known cure at this point in time, eating healthy and losing weight can really help manage the disease.
The Washington Post also reported that even people who were asymptomatic or had mild COVID can develop diabetes.
With that being said, the risk of diabetes is still much greater for those who had severe COVID symptoms.
It is important to note that The Washington Post stressed that “This kind of study can’t prove cause and effect, but showed a strong association between these two diseases.”
The research team that published the study in the medical journal Lancet Diabetes & Endocrinology looked at the records of over 181,000 Veterans Affairs patients.
Their records were compared to 4.1 million Veterans Affairs patients not infected during that same time period but also 4.28 million Veterans Affairs patients that had Medicare between 2018 and 2019.
All in all, the chief of research and development at Veterans Affairs St. Louis Health Care System, Ziyad Al-Aly, told The Washington Post that “For the broader public, if you have had Covid-19, you need to pay close attention to your blood sugar.”
