'Clash of 2 pandemics': Doctors find that COVID-19 spurs diabetes

[LiberalArkie]

Jason Gale - Bloomberg News (TNS)

When Ziyad Al-Aly’s research team told him how often diabetes appeared to strike COVID-19 survivors, he thought the data must be wrong, so he asked his five colleagues to crunch the numbers again.

Weeks later, they returned the same findings after sifting through millions of patient records. By then Al-Aly had also gone digging into the scientific literature and was starting to come to terms with an alarming reality: COVID-19 isn’t just deadlier for people with diabetes, it’s also triggering the metabolic disease in many who didn’t previously have it.

“It took a while to convince me,” said Al-Aly, who directs the clinical epidemiology center at the Veterans Affairs St. Louis Health Care System in Missouri. “It was hard to believe that COVID could be doing this.”

Among COVID-19’s many ripple effects, the worsening of the global diabetes burden could carry a heavy public health toll. The underlying mechanisms stoking new-onset diabetes aren’t clear, though some doctors suspect the SARS-CoV-2 virus may damage the pancreas, the gland that makes insulin that is needed to convert blood-sugar into energy. Sedentary lifestyles brought on by lockdowns could also be playing a role, as might late diagnoses after people avoided doctors’ offices. Even some children’s mild coronavirus cases can be followed by the swift onset of diabetes, scientists found.


Snip

https://www.gazettextra.com/news/nation_world/clash-of-2-pandemics-doctors-find-that-covid-19-spurs-diabetes/article_c9b11da9-069e-58f5-928f-ecdabcf54310.html

[roamer65]

1. Yet another reason to GET VACCINATED.

[SergeStorms]

2. Wow.

Just what this country needs. This virus is insidious.

[cinematicdiversions]

3. Some British journal (Lancet?) published a piece on how much worse Diabetes

was for you than AIDS. (A which would you rather have)

The backlash was intense primarily because they were absolutely correct. (Never tell the truth to those that do not want to hear it)


Diabetes is probably the most terrifying preventable disease out there. But people would rather go blind, lose a limb and die than change thier eating habits.

[Grasswire2]

5. there is a whole segment of society (ill-served by western medicine) who developed type 2 DM

It's not that many years ago (in our lifetimes) that western medicine decided that a low-fat diet would prevent heart disease and that (carb-filled) grains were the better alternative.

People were told that cholesterol was their mortal enemy.

However, it is not cholesterol that causes heart disease -- it is INFLAMMATION. We know that now. And the biggest contributor to INFLAMMATION is the sugar that your body produces from carbs.

But all those people who were diverted to high-carb whole grain food sources that drove up their blood sugars..........

now DIABETICS, type 2.

[AllyCat]

11. My mom LOVED her sweets. When she was diagnosed with familial hypercholesterolemia

...she was the ONLY member of the family to start statin drugs and avoided cholesterol like the plague. Her cholesterol never went down more than 30 points. Her triglycerides were through the ceiling with all the oat and other grain stuff she was eating (oats are GREAT for cholesterol-lowering, no? It's on all the boxes).

She never developed diabetes. But she did end up with continued high cholesterol and dementia, the latter killing her 2 months ago. Low fat is NOT a good alternative. That sugar is an issue. Sugar causes all kinds of problems and diabetes is a killer. And before it kills you, it ruins your body by taking your sight, your feeling in your feet, your ability to fight infection, and oftentimes, your limbs.

It takes a long time to come off a sugar addiction (yes, I think it is an addiction). Get out there, exercise, and stop eating all the crap.

And now, we find out Covid is likely causing many of the new cases. Inflammation is not a good thing. Take care of yourselves, please!

[Grasswire2]

15. yikes, what a sad story

Yes, and the carbs all turn to sugar in the body.

Statins are a hoax and only appropriate for one particular group of people. And statins deplete certain critical nutrients in the body.

Every time a specialist recommends a statin, he's FIRED by me. FIRED!

[I_UndergroundPanther]

17. Which nutrients do statins depleate

Never knew it does this.

I'd like to get the nutrients I'm missing.

[Nay]

18. CoQ-10, for one. I take it as a supplement.

[Grasswire2]

22. From Dr. Stephen Sinatra, board certified cardiologist, among other creds.

He's the expert on the myth of cholesterol.

An excerpt from his article on statins:


"CoQ10 depletion is a serious issue. Studies have shown that those with the lowest levels of this nutrient have a greater risk of congestive heart failure and lower chance of survival. And, as I said earlier, CoQ10 is also vital to the immune system.

Statins can also contribute to vitamin E deficiency, which can lead to muscle damage, nerve problems, infertility, destruction of red blood cells, and anemia. Levels of beta-carotene (the precursor to vitamin A) may also be reduced by statins. Its deficiency can lead to inflammation of the eyes and blindness, increased susceptibility to infections, and loss of appetite.

This is why anyone on a statin must supplement with CoQ10 (100–200 mg daily); vitamin E, in the form of mixed tocopherols (200 IU daily); and beta carotene (7,500 IU daily)."

The whole article is here: [link:https://heartmdinstitute.com/health-and-wellness/statins/|

[I_UndergroundPanther]

27. Yeah I avoid sugar almost cut it entirely out

Of my diet. I do keto.
Sugar is only for hypoglycemic episodes.

[wnylib]

13. It's not always preventable.

There is a genetic factor, seen in young children with Type I diabetes. Diabetes has multiple facets and does not always have the same causal or trigering factor. It is an autoimmune disorder. Another autoimmune disorder involving the endocrine system (hypothyroidism) is related and both disorders can run in families.

For example, my mother's aunt was diabetic, adult onset gestational diabetes that remained after her son was born. In her early teens, she had a goiter and other thyroid problems. She had two sons. One developed diabetes as an adult. That son had a daughter and a son. The son developed diabetes as an adult. Two of his children were diabetic, type 1, in early childhood. The daughter was not diabetic, but 3 of her 5 children were.

That great aunt was my grandmother's sister. Nobody among my grandmother's descendants was diabetic but my mother had an underactive thyroid. So did my sister, and so do I. I have been advised that, because of my hypothyroidism, I could develop diabetes.

Allergies and asthma also appear to have a correlation to hypothyroidism and diabetes. Hypothyroidism (underactive thyroid) is an autoimmune disorder in which a haywire immune unsystem attacks the thyroid gland as if it were a foreign invading substance. This can happen in the pancreas, too.

It's true that a diet high in refined carbohydrates and sugars can tax the ability to produce insulin and bring on type II diabetes, but it is not true that watching one's carb and sugar intake always prevents the development of diabetes because some people develop it due to genetics.

[meadowlander]

14. +1

My vegan marathon-running cousin who is the biggest health freak I know developed it in his 20s. The very fit guy in his 30s who ran the self-defense classes I once took had it as well.

I'm literally the only person in my very large extended family over the age of 40 who hasn't developed diabetes yet. While I'm very paranoid about how much sugar I consume and making sure I get at least a long walk in every day, I'm not a saint - certainly not compared with my cousin. I think genetics plays a very big role for some people and lifestyle factors in more for others. I think it's pretty inevitable that I'll get it eventually. I'm just trying to hold off until my 60s or 70s if I can and then hopefully don't become insulin dependant.

I would never assume that if someone developed diabetes that it was their fault for eating too much rubbish.

[wnylib]

19. And yet, the popular impression

among people who don't deal with it directly, or indirectly through relatives, is that diabetes is always caused by diet if it develops in adulthood (after age 20). Yet that just isn't true.

My cousins were adults when they developed diabetes but it was genetic in their cases. Their children were much younger when they were diagnosed. They were all fit and healthy and did not indulge in carbs or sweets precisely because they knew they were genetically vulnerable to it. And they still developed it because of a genetic predisposition.

The problem in misunderstanding it is applying a one size fits all cause/effect model to everyone. Diabetes is much more complex and varied than most people realize.

But, who knows? Maybe you got lucky and missed the genetic combination for developing it. My cousin had 5 kids and 2 of them did not get it. Good luck.

[I_UndergroundPanther]

30. My mom

Her thyroid was slow,my grandmother had thyroid problems..
I have slow thyroid. Had it years before the diabeties hit me.

I have a feeling genetics played a part in my diabeties

[wnylib]

31. I think you are right about the genetics

in regard to the hypothyroidism. It is genetic, and more often occurs in women, but men can also develop it.

And there is a correlation between thyroid disease and diabetes. Both involve the endocrine system. The most common form of hypothyroidism, Hasimoto's disorder, is an autoimmune disorder. Some types of diabetes are also autoimmune disorders.

In my case, as with my mother, sister (and Oprah), the hypothyroidism was not diagnosed until perimenopause. Estrogen seems to mask the symptoms, or in some way compensate. When estrogen levels change, the thyroid issues surface.

[SheltieLover]

4. K&R!

[luckone]

6. Even some children's mild coronavirus cases can be followed by the swift onset of diabetes..

With the child cases , some children’s mild coronavirus cases can be followed by the swift onset of diabetes, scientists found., I can’t see how that can be attributed to a 1 year doctor avoidance or even a some what sedentary year which may contribute to some adults cases
It’s the Covid even if scientist haven’t figured out how it happens yet
Scary stuff stay safe 😷

[Ms. Toad]

8. The child may have had undiiagnosed diabetes for years

(not just the 1-year doctor avoidance).

And - if they were given steroids that, alone, can create a sudden rise in blood glucose (which may be permanent).

A co-worker of mine had a daughter on steroids and, immediately after that the daughter was hospitalized with ketoacidosis (a life-threatening complication of diabetes, largely Type 1).

No one knows when it started - but they can trace symptoms back most of a year (now that they know what to look for). But had she had COVID (instead of whatever she was being treated for with steroids), her apparently new onset of Type 1 diabetes would be part of this dataset.

To many interconnected/poor health care factors to be definitive.

[Ms. Toad]

7. The headline is bit simplistic

The reality is that we really don't know yet.

Taking steroids really messes with diabetes - and can cause it. Guess what one of the main treatments is for COVID 19?

People who have had COVID (particularly who have been hit hard) are likely to be spending more time with their doctors - and there area a whole bunch of things that are jokingly referred to as "incedental-suffix" (things that would not have been diagnosed except for an incidental finding when looking for something else). Since most doctors don't regularly test for blood-glucose (they should), the diagnosis might have existed for years and have been found incidental to - for example - a contrast CT for COVID lung damage which often requires blood glucose and kidney function tests (both of which might result in an incidental diagnosis of diabetes).

It is going to take a while to sort this out, since many people are under-served by our current health care system and don't actually know their health status as to many conditions (including diabetes). To make a definitive statement that COVID 19 spurs diabetes, you would have to rule out the impact of a lot of interrelated variables.

Definitely something to watch - but I'm not yet convinced.

[FakeNoose]

9. I've only known a handful of people who've contracted Covid in the last year

... and none of them were under a doctor's care. All of them decided, or were told, that they have to ride it out at home, and only come to the ER if they have trouble breathing etc.

Like I said it's only a handful of people including 2 family members, and they are youngish and otherwise healthy. I believe this was happening all over the country in the last 14 months, people wouldn't or couldn't see a doctor unless they were already near death.

It's anecdotal I know, but we've been reading stuff here on DU and other sharing media that are so many of the same stories. The doctors and the hospitals only saw the worst cases, many of whom were ready to be intubated. I don't think anybody has a handle on "what's the norm" because there is no norm yet. It's going to take a lot of digging and data-collecting before anybody knows.

[aggiesal]

10. The nightmare that keeps on giving! ...

GET VACCINATED!

[Evolve Dammit]

12. Diabetes, obesity, depression, and others will be attributable to the last 14 and counting months.

[I_UndergroundPanther]

16. Thankful that I am vaccinated.

Already have diabeties,but I don't doubt catching covid if I survived it would have have made it worse.

[Grasswire2]

23. the stat I have seen is this:

One in six diabetic patients admitted to hospital with Covid will die from it.

[I_UndergroundPanther]

25. That's why as soon as I could get an

Appointment, I got my shot.
Because I had a scary risk of dieing from covid. Add in my other risk factors and covid most likely would have killed me.

[Grasswire2]

28. my worst fear in life, having worked in an ICU-CCU, has always been dying on a ventilator.

I manned the desk, as the unit clerk and EKG tech. I saw many patients be intubated, and then lie in misery except for the pain meds.

If you have ever heard the sound of a nurse or respiratory therapist suctioning a patient who is on a ventilator, you would know there are things worse than death.

And I, too, am a diabetic. Just finally going to get my shot on Saturday -- couldn't get an appointment earlier.

[JI7]

20. That sucks . I wish we could have more serious reporting and conversations about these issues

instead of spending so much time on BS which usually comes from the right wing.

[cadoman]

21. research at Salk Institute indicates the spike protein (not the virus) may cause vascular damage

https://www.salk.edu/news-release/the-novel-coronavirus-spike-protein-plays-additional-key-role-in-illness/

Stay informed, stay safe, masks up, and get VACCINATED folks.

[uponit7771]

24. My blood sugar went sky high after the shot then dipped low without meds for nearly 2 weeks. I wante

... wanted to take another shot.

[I_UndergroundPanther]

26. Moderna raised my sugar levels too

But I keep my blood sugar 95% percent of the time keep sugar levels in the 80's and 90's or once in awhile in the low hundreds.

So I really didn't get much lower with the vaccine. But I had a couple of really low readings after the high sugar reading and had to eat some honey to get my sugar levels up fast.

[Grasswire2]

29. gee, I have seen no discussion of how the vaccine affects diabetics.

Thank you for the information. I wouldn't have known, and I get my J&J on Saturday.