COVID seems to be causing diabetes in some people!

[thewayne]

Yeah, we need more weirdness.

Apparently COVID infections are producing a form of diabetes in some people that is possibly transient. In some cases it starts as Type 1 then becomes Type 2. Very weird. They've started an anonymized repository called CoviDiab to build a better knowledgebase of what's going on and to try to find out is it the disease, or might it be the disease plus drugs being used in treatment, or just WTF.

Strange days indeed.

https://www.wired.com/story/a-global-data-effort-probes-whether-covid-causes-diabetes/

Comments

[acelightning]

I suspect it's related to the fact that some people's bodies respond to the Corona virus with a cytokine storm - both forms of diabetes seem to be related to the immune system in various ways. I have Type 2 myself, as well as atrial fibrillation and congestive heart failure, and I'm doing everything in my power to avoid contagion.

[thewayne]

I think, though I'm by no means certain, that the cytokine storm is a later stage development in the progression of the virus and this diabetes onset is seen as an early stage/initial assessment thing.  I believe that's why they want steroids later on in severe cases to tramp down the immune system to fight the cytokine storm and not early on when the immune system has a chance, but I may be misremembering things.  Too many complicated facts! But in the end: new virus, we've been studying it for ten months now.  Still building information.  My wife said she saw an article unrelated to COVID about adults without diabetes developing Type 1, which is pretty weird. That's the thing about the human body: the deeper you poke, the weirder it gets.