Can a COVID-19 infection have long-term health effects on people with diabetes, including advancing their risk for heart disease?
Researchers believe that the genetic makeup of patients with diabetes or those predisposed to the disease makes them more prone to post-COVID inflammatory conditions that impact the heart and brain.
In a study from the University of Central Florida, scientists found long-term effects of COVID-19 on people with diabetes.
They examined the mechanisms and possible effects of COVID-19 on patients with high-risk diabetes and the virus’ potential to advance the disease, leading to inflammation and heart failure.
They suggest COVID-19 could have three major long-term effects on patients.
One is a cognitive dysfunction, which can lead to Alzheimer’s disease. Second, it can enhance diabetes in pre-diabetic patients or pre-diabetic conditions.
Third, it can exacerbate complications of diabetes such as cardiomyopathy or muscle dysfunction.
The team theorizes that some diabetic patients who were infected with COVID-19 may have developed a different cellular composition in their blood compared to diabetic patients who never had COVID.
The next step is to analyze specific cellular differences in diabetics with and without a COVID infection.
COVID-19 has affected more than 600 million people worldwide, and because vaccines have made the virus not as alarming today as it was two years ago, there are still many unanswered questions about COVID’s long-term impact on health.
The team is currently working on securing funding to explore the unanswered questions left in the wake of the virus.
If you care about COVID, please read studies about the cause of post-COVID syndromes, and how vitamin B may help fight COVID-19.
For more information about COVID, please see recent studies about rare blood clots after COVID-19 vaccination, and scientists find antibodies that block all the COVID-19 variants.
The study was conducted by Dr. Dinender Singla et al and published in the American Journal of Physiology–Heart and Circulatory Physiology.
Copyright © 2022 Knowridge Science Report. All rights reserved.
