COVID Has Been 'Devastating' to Americans with Diabetes, Who Account for Up to 40% of Virus Deaths

Julie Mazziotta
·3 min read
2
Diabetes test
Diabetes test

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The link between COVID-19 and diabetes is becoming clearer as more research shows how Americans with the chronic health condition have been significantly impacted by the virus.

Multiple studies, including data from the Centers for Disease Control, have pointed to a high number of COVID-19 deaths occurring in Americans with diabetes, likely between 30 to 40% of all deaths.

Prior studies have also found that people with diabetes are more likely to have severe illness, spend more time in the ICU and are more likely to be put on a ventilator. And for those with diabetes who go to the hospital, one study found that 20% died within a month.

"It's hard to overstate just how devastating the pandemic has been for Americans with diabetes," Dr. Giuseppina Imperatore, who oversees diabetes prevention and treatment at the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, told The New York Times.

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And on the other side, COVID appears to lead to diabetes in some patients. Three recent studies that found both children and adults are at a higher risk of developing diabetes after recovering from COVID-19. A large study of more than 181,000 U.S. COVID-19 patients found that they were 40% more likely to develop diabetes than those who didn't contract the virus. Even in people who had few or no prior risk factors for diabetes, having COVID-19 gave them a 38% higher chance of developing the condition.

A second study, of 8.8 million adult patients in Germany, found that even those with mild cases of COVID-19 were 28% more likely to go on to be diagnosed with type 2 diabetes.

And a CDC report on new diabetes cases between March 2020 and June 2021 found that insurance claims for children with diabetes went up 31% after COVID-19 infection.

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Diabetes appears to be one of the several long term effects that COVID-19 can have on people, Dr. Ziyad Al-Aly, chief of research and development at VA Saint Louis Health Care System and lead author of the study on U.S. COVID patients developing diabetes, told ABC News.

"COVID-19 isn't only about the acute effects. This is going to leave a lot of people with long-term health consequences that they'll have to deal with for a lifetime and that's jarring," he said. "It's unsettling to accept."

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And between skyrocketing insulin prices and poor access to health care for underprivileged Americans, this new research points to a need for better support for diabetes patients.

"Millions of Americans were already struggling with diabetes, and then COVID came along and cut a huge swath of suffering and misery that has been largely overlooked by the public and policymakers," Dr. David Kerr, the director of research and innovation at Sansum Diabetes Research Institute in California, told the Times. "Diabetes is a wicked problem and COVID has just shone a bright light on this crisis."

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