A RECENT study from the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention shows that children are more likely to be diagnosed with diabetes a month or more after their COVID-19 infection, compared to those who did not have COVID-19.

Using two different health databases, IQVIA and HealthVerity, researchers evaluated data from thousands of patients younger than 18 between March 1, 2020 and Feb. 26, 2021, comparing those who had been diagnosed with COVID-19 to those who had a pre-pandemic, non-COVID respiratory infection, and also to those who had neither.

They found that children in the IQVIA database diagnosed with COVID-19 during that time were 166 percent more likely than those who did not have COVID-19 to be diagnosed later with diabetes. In the HealthVerity database, children with COVID-19 were 31 percent more likely to get a new diabetes diagnosis.

Researchers said children who had COVID-19 were also 116 percent more likely to develop diabetes than those who had non-COVID respiratory infections prior to the pandemic. Non-COVID respiratory infection “was not associated with diabetes.”

Mary Pat Gallagher, director of NYU Langone’s Pediatric Diabetes Center, said that it’s believed certain infections can create a “perfect storm” that contributes to the development of diabetes.

“Maybe it would have been in two years, maybe would have been in five years, but it was coming,” she added. “And maybe having this infection pushed them towards an earlier diagnosis.”

This increase in diabetes diagnoses throughout the pandemic is something that Sheela Natesh Magge, director of the pediatric endocrinology division at Johns Hopkins, has seen as well.

The CDC’s study, Magge says, helps affirm that information. However, it does not clarify whether the diabetes is spurred by COVID-19 itself or by other factors. The study is based on data from insurance claims, and does not include information about demographic risk factors that could have contributed to a diabetes diagnosis, such as prior health status. (SD-Agencies)