Diabecovid, the new form of diabetes caused by Covid
Up to now only two forms of diabetes mellitus have been known but following the pandemic, a third has emerged, Diabecovid. The connections between the Sars-CoV-2 virus and the disease in both adults and children are also being studied. All the details
The aftermath of the pandemic seems to have no end and among the latest bad discoveries resulting from the pandemic is that of a new form of diabetes mellitus, Diabecovid. But there is good news …
THE THIRD TYPE OF DIABETES
So far there were two known forms of diabetes mellitus: form 1, insulin-dependent, and form 2, often linked to obesity .
With the pandemic, however, a third form has emerged, considered a real long Covid disease, in fact it can occur even months after the contraction of the virus. Hence the name of Diabecovid.
The news was given by the Italian Society of Metabolism, Diabetes and Obesity (Simdo) on the occasion of its XXI Congress, chaired by Doctor Vincenzo Provenzano, in the presence of 30 companies and 200 experts from all over Italy and abroad.
THE GOOD NEWS
Despite the discovery, Simdo's study noted that this new third form of diabetes – compared to others that are characterized by being chronic -, if caught early, can be cured into remission.
DATA ON DIABECOVID
Diabecovid, notes Salute Domani , has an important impact on the national picture of the disease.
It is, in fact, 18% more (10% men and 8% women), compared to 8% of people who already have diabetes in Italy. The new cases add to the 4 million already confirmed, the million people who have diabetes and don't know it, and the 3 million people with pre-diabetes.
Numbers that according to Provenzano, head of Diabetology at the Civic Hospital of Partinico and director of the same Covid center, create "an emergency of a social nature both in terms of numbers and complications, such as difficulties in having children, blindness, dialysis, amputation of lower limbs".
THE RELATIONSHIP BETWEEN COVID AND DIABETES
Diabecovid was discovered thanks to the clinics dedicated to long Covid, however, the connections between Covid and diabetes had already been noticed in the previous months, especially thanks to the attention paid to it by the Italian Society of Diabetology (Sid).
On March 28, 2020, Il Sole24Ore recalls, the first article was published which highlighted how people with diabetes had a doubled probability of death from Covid-19.
“Despite the analysis of huge databases, such as those of Veneto and Sicily, it is still unclear whether people with diabetes have a higher risk of contracting Sars-CoV-2 infection. On the other hand, it is certain – the article reads – the massive negative effect exerted by diabetes on the probability that a positive person needs hospitalization, intensive care and succumbs to the virus ".
Even unrecognized hyperglycemia, which is present in about 40% of patients at the time of hospitalization for Covid-19, is a powerful risk factor for the aggravation of the disease.
DIABETES AND CHILDREN
Experts are also wondering about the possibility that children who have had Covid may be more at risk of developing diabetes 1. At the moment, however, this is only a hypothesis suggested by two studies.
The first, released on JAMA Network Open and conducted by researchers from Case Western Reserve University, noted that of the 571,256 participants with Covid, 123 (0.04%) had been newly diagnosed with diabetes 1, compared to 72 in the group who had had non-Covid respiratory infections.
Also in the second study, published by the American Diabetes Association and conducted on 1.2 million Norwegian children, there was an increase in diabetes 1 cases among children who had Covid compared to those who did not. In particular, in the group of Covid-positive children, 0.13% were diagnosed with diabetes 1 against 0.08% in the other group.
As anticipated, the link between Covid and diabetes has not yet been confirmed but the hypothesis is that the virus attacks pancreatic beta cells, then leading to the development of diabetes.
This is a machine translation from Italian language of a post published on Start Magazine at the URL https://www.startmag.it/sanita/diabecovid-la-nuova-forma-di-diabete-causata-dal-covid/ on Wed, 19 Oct 2022 12:18:18 +0000.