MONTREAL – Young people under the age of 18 who are diagnosed with COVID-19 are then at increased risk of being diagnosed with diabetes, shows an analysis by researchers from the States Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) -United.
The risk of being diagnosed with diabetes was greater in these young people than in those who had not been diagnosed with COVID-19 and even than in those who had been diagnosed with a respiratory tract infection.
These findings support previous studies that have found an association between COVID-19 and diabetes in adults.
“It’s a signal that we didn’t see coming (among young people), based on previous studies,” commented Dr. Rémi Rabasa-Lhoret, a diabetes specialist at the Montreal Clinical Research Institute. There are plausible mechanisms (…) even if we have not formally proven the mechanisms by which it could occur.
The mechanisms responsible for an increased risk of diabetes in young people infected with SARS-CoV-2 are most likely very complex, thus admit the CDC researchers, and possibly result from direct damage to the organs involved in the risk of diabetes.
The researchers raise several hypotheses, such as a direct attack on pancreatic cells and stress hyperglycemia associated with the cytokine storm that has often made the headlines.
Experiments carried out in the laboratory have, for example, shown that SARS-CoV-2 can “damage” the cells of the pancreas which produce insulin, said Doctor Rabasa-Lhoret.
In addition, he adds, all infections, including COVID, interfere with the normal functioning of cells in the body, and drugs used to treat COVID (such as cortisone) could be involved.
Prediabetes and overweight
CDC experts also point to a possible acceleration of the transition from prediabetes to diabetes: a percentage of new diabetes diagnoses likely occur in patients with prediabetes, a problem that affects 20% of adolescents in the United States, the authors said.
It is also not impossible, they add, that diabetes diagnoses have occurred in young people who have gained weight since the start of the pandemic, since overweight and obesity are leading risk factors. for diabetes.
“When we look at the large published studies, we see that there are about 50% of people whose eating habits or physical activity or stress have ultimately been relatively little impacted by COVID,” said the doctor. Rabasa-Lhoret.
“There is about another 25%, on the contrary, in whom there is a very significant deterioration (…) and who unfortunately had a bad experience of the first waves of COVID. We know that factors such as a sedentary lifestyle or poor diet or rapid weight gain in someone predisposed can actually trigger diabetes.
The CDC’s analysis cannot currently determine whether the diabetes associated with COVID-19 is chronic or transient.
Experts are asking relatives of young people who have been infected with SARS-CoV-2 to stay alert for symptoms of diabetes, including frequent urination, increased thirst and hunger, weight loss, fatigue, stomach pain and nausea or vomiting.
We should not delay in consulting a health professional, argues Dr. Rabasa-Lhoret, even if the reluctance of the population to come to the hospital or clinic in the current context is understandable and well documented.
“The later patients come, especially for type 1 diabetes, the higher the short-term health risks,” he said. We do see people who are sicker later and we understand very well why people are reluctant to wait hours in the emergency room.