(C) Daily Kos
This story was originally published by Daily Kos and is unaltered.
. . . . . . . . . .



Even mild infection with COVID-19 leads to a 58% increase in the risk of developing diabetes [1]

['Daily Kos Staff', 'Backgroundurl Avatar_Large', 'Nickname', 'Joined', 'Created_At', 'Story Count', 'N_Stories', 'Comment Count', 'N_Comments', 'Popular Tags']

Date: 2023-02-16

The study was published on Wednesday in the Journal of the American Medical Association (JAMA) Network. The study noted that, early in the pandemic, doctors saw expansive evidence that people who were infected by COVID-19 were more likely to develop cardiometabolic diseases, “including diabetes, hypertension, and hyperlipidemia.” That last one means high-fat levels in the blood, and like both diabetes and hypertension, it increases the chance of heart attacks and strokes as well as damage to other organs.

But it’s been more than a year now since the Omicron variant became dominant in most areas. Many of those variants have proven elusive of the protection provided by past infection, are massively infectious, and have made some treatments—such as monoclonal antibodies—essentially useless. However, they’re also widely regarded as “less virulent.” Unlike previous years, where the post-holiday period brought on spikes in COVID-related deaths that reached 23,000 per week in 2021 and 17,000 per week in 2022, this year saw deaths reach “only” 4,400 a week.

It’s difficult to determine just how many cases of COVID-19 are now appearing in the U.S. each week. Testing rates are lower than they have been since April 2020, a time when tests were still unavailable in many areas, and the cumulative number of COVID cases recorded was still fewer than a million. Over 102 million cases later, it’s safe to say that the level of COVID circulating right now is simply “a lot.”

But with deaths down and hospitalization rates declining, is it really time to take off the masks and deal with COVID as “just another endemic disease?” The report has nothing but bad news on that front.

Researchers took the same set of people and looked at health issues that appeared in a 90-day window previous to a known infection with COVID-19, and compared it to a 90-day window after the COVID-19 infection. The study once again confirmed that infection with COVID-19 was tied to a sharp increase in risk of developing diabetes. In fact, the chances of contracting diabetes in the months following infection with COVID-19 increased by 58%. And this hasn’t changed over the course of the pandemic.

Our results suggest that this risk persisted as the Omicron variant became predominant, and the association remained even after accounting for temporal confounders.

The fact that omicron variants are circulating more widely, often with few symptoms, does not make them safe or harmless. The long-term cardiometabolic threat seems to be the same as it was from the original disease right through delta. This was actually slightly lower than a pair of previous reports, one looking at 11 million veterans and the other at a combined pool of more than 45 million patients, suggesting that COVID-19 infection was related to a 63-66% increase in chances of contracting diabetes, as well as a similar risk in heart attacks and strokes. But this study is the first to look specifically to see if omicron is safer long term. It’s not.

However, there was some good news.

Diabetes risk after COVID-19 infection was higher in unvaccinated than vaccinated patients, suggesting a benefit of vaccination.

In some groups, that difference was so low as to be statistically insignificant. In others, it represented a drop of some 40% in the risk. In no group was vaccination connected with any increase in long-term issues. So make sure you’re vaccinated and that you have the latest available boosters.

The overall message is simply that there is a serious long-term health risk associated with COVID-19 infection, even if it’s omicron, and even if it’s mild.

Whether or not you’ve ever had COVID-19, the thread below is a good one to bookmark. It covers not just what you should do to take care of yourself and your family, but brings home a very important point: “go get a rapid PCR or molecular test for COVID at an urgent care.” That’s not because the home tests are unreliable. It’s because if you do need to be hospitalized, or if you develop health issues related to COVID-19 infection later, you need documentation of that positive test result.

This is especially true should you come down with “long COVID.” Securing tests, treatment, and potential disability pay are all going to be a lot easier if you can tap your finger on an actual test from a medical facility showing a positive result. Even if it came from the drive-thru at CVS.

[END]
---
[1] Url: https://www.dailykos.com/stories/2023/2/16/2153312/-On-May-11-the-public-health-emergency-expires-but-COVID-19-keeps-right-on-being-a-serious-threat

Published and (C) by Daily Kos
Content appears here under this condition or license: Site content may be used for any purpose without permission unless otherwise specified.

via Magical.Fish Gopher News Feeds:
gopher://magical.fish/1/feeds/news/dailykos/

You are viewing proxied material from magical.fish. The copyright of proxied material belongs to its original authors. Any comments or complaints in relation to proxied material should be directed to the original authors of the content concerned. Please see the disclaimer for more details.