Children infected with Covid may be more likely to develop diabetes, study suggests.
Ohio researchers tested more than 600,000 American children and adolescents who had contracted Covid or a different respiratory illness.
The team found that children and adolescents with Covid were up to 60 percent more likely to develop type 2 diabetes than those with other viruses.
They noted that this could be because Covid disrupts your metabolism or causes your pancreas cells to not produce enough insulin, which could lead to diabetes.
Being a type 2 diabetic puts them at much higher risk for complications such as a stroke or heart attack.
Children and adolescents infected with Covid may be more likely to develop type 2 diabetes, researchers at Case Western Reserve University in Ohio found (file image)
However, the study only looked at correlation and not causation, meaning the findings do not prove that Covid causes type 2 diabetes.
The team noted that some of these cases could have been lurking before participants fell ill with Covid and diabetes was discovered while receiving treatment for Covid.
However, “a substantial portion of cases follow infection,” they wrote. Many of the children were also not overweight.
The findings come as diabetes rises in the US and UK, which experts have attributed to rising obesity rates and greater access to ultra-processed foods.
According to the CDC, about 34 million Americans are diagnosed with type 2 diabetes, and just over 5,000 of them are under the age of 19.
The new study from Case Western Reserve University in Ohio analyzed data from 613,602 children and adolescents ages 10 to 19 between January 2020 and December 2022.
Half of the participants had been diagnosed with Covid at some point during the study, while the other half had contracted an unrelated respiratory illness such as asthma, pneumonia or bronchitis.
In each group, about one in every 200 participants was overweight or obese.
The average age was 15 years and the majority of participants (57 percent) were white.
The researchers checked the risk of diabetes at three different intervals: one, three and six months after being diagnosed with Covid or another respiratory disease.
This was done by looking at A1C levels, which measure average blood glucose.
Researchers found that children and adolescents who had been infected with Covid were 55 percent more likely to develop type 2 diabetes a month after infection than those with other respiratory conditions.
That risk fell slightly to 48 percent after three months before rising to 58 percent after six months.
And those who were overweight or obese were twice as likely to develop diabetes one and three months after infection compared to those with other respiratory diseases.
After six months, this group had a 227 percent higher risk.
The map above shows the states with the highest rates of type 2 diabetes.
The graph above shows estimates of diabetes cases worldwide. The number of people with this condition is expected to more than double by 2050 compared to 2021.
The team also found that children and adolescents who had been hospitalized within a month of contracting Covid were three times more likely to develop diabetes after a month compared to those hospitalized with other illnesses.
That elevated risk dropped slightly to about 270 percent after three and six months.
They said Covid could disrupt metabolism, causing nutrient imbalances and weight gain, which have been associated with the risk of type 2 diabetes.
In addition, they observed that infection can increase the development of antibodies that attack the cells of the pancreas, which produce insulin. If the body cannot produce enough insulin, glucose builds up in the blood, increasing the risk of diabetes.
The researchers said more studies are needed to see how likely diabetes is to persist or reverse later in life.