AsianScientist (Aug. 18, 2020) – In patients with COVID-19 but without a previous diagnosis of diabetes, abnormally high blood sugar is associated with more than double the risk of death and also an increased risk of severe complications. These findings, by researchers in China, have been published in Diabetologia.
Previous studies have established that hyperglycaemia (abnormally high blood sugar) is associated with an elevated risk of mortality in conditions ranging from community-acquired pneumonia to stroke and trauma. A number of studies have also shown links between diabetes and poor outcomes in COVID-19 patients. However, direct correlation between fasting blood glucose (FBG) level at admission to hospital and clinical outcomes of COVID-19 patients without diagnosed diabetes has not been well established.
In this study, a team of researchers led by Dr. Yang Jin of Huazhong University of Science and Technology, China, examined 605 COVID-19 patients without previously diagnosed diabetes in two hospitals in Wuhan, China. They found that patients in the highest FBG group were 2.3 times more likely to die than those in the lowest. Meanwhile, those in the middle (pre-diabetic) FBG group were 71 percent more likely to die than those in the lowest group, although this result only had borderline statistical significance.
“This study shows, for the first time, that elevated FBG at admission is independently associated with increased 28-day mortality and percentages of in-hospital complications in COVID-19 patients without previous diagnosis of diabetes,” the authors wrote.
Possible mechanisms for this increased mortality include hyperglycaemia-induced changes in blood clotting, damage to the walls of blood vessels, and overproduction of inflammatory cytokines produced by the immune system, the authors suggested.
“Blood sugar testing and control should be recommended to all COVID-19 patients even if they do not have pre-existing diabetes, as most COVID-19 patients are prone to glucose metabolic disorders. During a pandemic of COVID-19, measuring fasting blood glucose can facilitate the assessment of prognosis and early intervention of hyperglycaemia to help improve the overall outcomes in treatment of COVID-19,” they concluded.
The article can be found at: Wang et al. (2020) Fasting Blood Glucose at Admission is an Independent Predictor for 28-day Mortality in Patients With COVID-19 Without Previous Diagnosis of Diabetes: A Multi-centre Retrospective Study.
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Source: Diabetologia; Photo: Shutterstock.
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