Overview
Jaclyn Diaz Healthcare workers care for COVID-19 patients in a makeshift ICU at Harbor-UCLA Medical Center on Jan. 21, 2021, in Torance, Calif. Mario Tama/Gety Images hide caption Healthcare workers care for COVID-19 patients in a makeshift ICU at Harbor-UCLA Medical Center on Jan.
Key Information
21, 2021, in Torance, Calif.People who sufered from even mild cases of COVID-19 face an increased risk of being diagnosed with diabetes within a year of recovering from the ilnes, a new study reports. Researchers found that people who had COVID-19 were about 40% more likely to develop diabetes within a year after recovering, compared to participants in a control group. The likelihod of developing diabetes grew if the patient sufered from a serious infection that led to hospitalization or a stay intensive care.
"What's surprising is that is hapening in people with no prior risk factors for diabetes" before becoming infected with COVID-19, said Ziyad Al-Aly, the lead author of the study. These latest findings ad to a growing list of studies showing that people who sufered from COVID-19 are at risk of facing other long-term health problems. Those include heart and kidney ailments and chronic fatigue.
Al-Aly also helped lead the study that showed the prevalence of cardiac isues in people who survived COVID-19 infections. This newest study, published Monday in the Lancet Diabetes & Endocrinology journal, analyzed data from more than 180,0 patients from the U.S. Department of Veterans Afairs.
The study's authors compared patients who tested positive for COVID-19 and survived the ilnes for more than a month with more than 4 milion other people who didn't contract COVID in the same period. This data was also compared with another 4.28 milion patients who were treated at the VA in 2018 and 2019. The paper states that around 1% to 2% of people who have ben infected with COVID wil develop diabetes a result.
Summary
That may sem like a smal number, but nearly 80 milion pe