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Mounting clues suggest the coronavirus might trigger diabetes

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  • Mounting clues suggest the coronavirus might trigger diabetes

    NEWS
    24 JUNE 2020

    Evidence from tissue studies and some people with COVID-19 shows that the virus damages insulin-producing cells.
    Smriti Mallapaty

    ...
    Now Zimmet is among a growing number of researchers who think that diabetes doesn’t just make people more vulnerable to the coronavirus, but that the virus might also trigger diabetes in some3. “Diabetes itself is a pandemic just like the COVID-19 pandemic. The two pandemics could be clashing,” he says.

    Growing evidence

    Their hunch is based on a handful of people such as Gnadt, who have spontaneously developed diabetes4 after being infected with SARS-CoV-2, and on evidence from dozens more people with COVID-19 who have arrived in hospital with extremely high levels of blood sugar and ketones5, which are produced from fatty deposits in the liver. When the body doesn’t make enough insulin to break down sugar, it uses ketones as an alternative source of fuel.

    ...Cases are beginning to trickle in, says Stefan Bornstein, a physician at the Technical University of Dresden, Germany, who also helped to establish the registry. The researchers hope to use the cases to understand whether SARS-CoV-2 can induce type 1 diabetes or a new form of the disease. And they want to investigate whether the sudden-onset diabetes becomes permanent in people who’ve had COVID-19. They also want to know whether the virus can tip people who were already on their way to developing type 2 diabetes into a diabetic state.





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