April 18, 2023

expert reaction to study looking at the association of COVID-19 infection with diabetes

A study published in JAMA Network Open looks at the association of association of COVID-19 infection with incident diabetes.

Prof Kamlesh Khunti, Professor of Primary Care Diabetes and Vascular Medicine, University of Leicester, said:

“There have been a number of studies that have explored the association of COVID-19 with new onset diabetes.  Some have shown a higher risk while others have not shown an increase in risk.  However there are a number of limitations to the studies.  Potential mechanisms for onset of diabetes in people with COVID-19 could include pre-existing diabetes which was not known but identified when patients are admitted to hospital through routine blood tests, transient diabetes because patients were given steroids on admission, stress onset diabetes due to admission which has been well known for other admissions such as heart attacks, and finally a possibility that the entry point of SARS CoV-2 virus occurs through cells in the pancreas destroying the insulin producing cells.

“This study is a well conducted very large study and takes account of a number of factors such as vaccination and deprivation status, but not ethnicity.  Interestingly people who were vaccinated didn’t have a higher risk of diabetes which is a great message for the public.

“There are limitations to all the studies that have been published and there is a need for longer term studies to determine whether these patients have transient diabetes due to COVID-19 which settles within a certain time period.”

‘Association of COVID-19 Infection With Incident Diabetes’ by Zaeema Naveed et al. was published in JAMA Network Open at 16:00 UK time on Tuesday 18 April 2023.

DOI: 10.1001/jamanetworkopen.2023.8866

Declared interests

Prof Kamlesh Khunti: “Conducting studies on covid-19 and diabetes.  Member of SAGE.”