Increased Risk for Diabetes Emerges as a Threat in Children with COVID-19

The longer the COVID-19 pandemic continues, the more consequences emerge—including among pediatric patients. Most recently, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention published a study indicating that infection with SARS-CoV-2 is associated not only with worsened symptoms of already-diagnosed diabetes, but also with increased risk for newly diagnosed diabetes in patients under 18 years of age. In comparing cases of pediatric patients with COVID-19 (n=80,893) with those who did not (n=404,465), the researchers found a 166% greater risk for diabetes more than 30 days post infection. The findings could be viewed as further incentive for parents to have their children vaccinated against the virus, but also as evidence that children who have recovered from COVID-19 should be followed and assessed for diabetes. You probably recall that early on in the pandemic it appeared children were unlikely to experience poor outcomes with COVID-19, though multisystem inflammatory syndrome was soon identified as a related concern. For more on that, read Multisystem Inflammatory Syndrome in Children (MIS-C): Who Should Not Be Misc’ed? in the JUCM archive.