About 10% of Covid-19 patients with diabetes died and 20% required ventilator support: Study
About 10% of Covid-19 patients with diabetes died within a week of hospitalization. About 20% had to be hooked to a ventilator for breathing support. These are findings from a new study that documents how the virus strikes people with the blood sugar condition.
The study looked at 1,317 Covid-19 patients admitted to 53 public and private French hospitals between March 10 and 31. Of them, 89% had type 2 diabetes, while only 3% had type 1 diabetes, and remaining had other types of the condition. Further, doctors diagnosed the disease in 3% of Covid-19 patients after getting hospitalized.
In this study, the authors provide a clearer picture of what makes this population vulnerable to coronavirus disease. So they investigated whether drugs for diabetes or other complications resulting from abnormal blood sugar levels placed people at higher risk of severe infection and death.
Insulin and other drugs that control diabetes did not raise the risk of death in Covid-19 patients. They should be allowed to take these medications, the study added. As for age, patients aged between 65-74 years were three times more likely to die than those under 55 years.
Further, complications from abnormal blood sugars such as damage to the eye, kidney, and nerve damage more than doubled the risk of death on Day 7 after hospitalization. What is more, a breathing disorder called sleep apnoea -- commonly found in among people with type 2 diabetes -- tripled the risk of death at seven days.
Patients with higher Body Mass Index or BMI had a higher risk of needing ventilator support or dying on Day 7, the study found. "The risk factors for a severe form of Covid-19 are identical to those found in the general population: age and BMI.
"Elderly populations with long-term diabetes with advanced diabetic complications and/or treated obstructive sleep apnoea were particularly at risk of early death and might require specific management to avoid infection with the novel coronavirus," the researchers said. BMI also appears to predict Covid-19 severity in people living with diabetes. "The link between obesity and Covid-19 requires further study," they added.
Diabetes, viral infection and risk of death
The link between diabetes and disease emerged in China, where scientists found about 5-20% of Covid-19 patients had diabetes, with its prevalence increasing in people with severe disease. The disease was associated with a more than doubled risk for ICU admission and a more than tripled risk for death, a study that examined data on how the condition impacted infection.
Covid-19 is not the only viral infection associated with diabetes. The 2009 H1N1 pandemic influenza and, more recently, with the cousin of the new coronavirus — the Middle East respiratory syndrome-related coronavirus (MERS-CoV), put diabetics at greater risk of dying, the authors wrote in their study. "It is well known that people with diabetes have increased infection risk, especially for influenza and pneumonia," the researchers added.
The study appears in the Journal Diabetologia.