COVID-19 is More Dangerous for Diabetics
The Claim
1/10 diabetics who are hospitalized with COVID-19 will die.
Emerging story
Despite controversy around recording diabetes cases as COVID deaths, a new study published in the journal Diabetologia in France shows that 10% of COVID-19 patients with diabetes died within 7 days of being hospitalized.
Misbar’s Analysis
Researchers in France recently gathered data that assessed the risk of dying from COVID-19 in patients who had either Type 1 or Type 2 diabetes. The study, which looked at more that 1,3000 COVID-19 patients across 53 hospitals in France during March gathered data on patients who had either Type 1 or Type 2 diabetes. Of the 1,300 patients looked at, 3% had Type 1, while 89% had Type 2, with the average age of patients being 70-years-old.
The researchers found that within one week (7 days), 29% of the patients had either been placed on a ventilator or succumbed to their illnesses, saying that 1/5 of patients had been placed on a ventilator and that 1/10 had died. The study also showed that 65% of COVID-19 patients with diabetes admitted to the hospital are men. Drawing a correlation between the two.
“We conducted a nationwide multicentre observational study in people with diabetes hospitalized for COVID-19 in 53 French centers in the period 10–31 March 2020. The primary outcome combined tracheal intubation for mechanical ventilation and/or death within 7 days of admission,” said the study’s authors. “In people with diabetes hospitalized for COVID-19, BMI, but not long-term glucose control, was positively and independently associated with tracheal intubation and/or death within 7 days.”
Despite the data, Dr. Robert Eckel, the president of medicine and science at the American Diabetes Association, who was not involved in the study thinks the study is telling but not necessarily conclusive, as it doesn’t show that people with diabetes have a higher risk of getting sicker if they contract COVID-19.
"Based on the observation of data, I think, ultimately, one can't be overly conclusive about it, but it does again validate some other studies indicating diabetes is a predictor for outcome," he said.
In summary, while the study only looked at COVID-19 patients in France, the patients who had either Type 1 or Type 2 diabetes were more than twice as likely to die from COVID-19.
