Potential increase in diabetes after COVID
SACRAMENTO - An alarming new study reveals a potential health complication for anyone who has ever had COVID.
COVID was initially thought to be just a dangerous and contagious respiratory infection that only affects the lungs. However, new findings every 3 to 6 months are shedding light that it affects other parts of the body as well.
Cardiologist Dr. Alan Kwan was the study's lead author and he looked at the medical records of more than 23,000 adults who had had COVID at least once. It found that the combined risk of Type-2 diabetes after COVID for both vaccinated and unvaccinated patients was 2.1%. Dr. Kwan says they don't know the reason yet, but they're focusing on the severe inflammation COVID causes.
The study also found that vaccination seemed to reduce the risk. People who had received the shot had almost no increased risk, while the unvaccinated had higher odds of a new diabetes diagnosis, underscoring doctors' pleas for people to get vaccine and boosted.
"It would be best if you don't get COVID," said Dr. Jerry Abraham who serves in South L.A.
This is alarming for a country where he says one in ten people develop diabetes, and especially in the Black and Latino communities in South L.A, where there are much higher rates of obesity and heart disease and diabetes.
As California and the nation prepare to officially end the COVID states of emergency, Dr. Abraham is in Washington pleading for Congress to continue funding for vaccine clinics, testing and treatment as studies like this reveal more about the long-term impact of COVID-19.