Data Reveal a New Risk Factor for Severe Illness with COVID-19—Are You Vigilant for It?

Two new studies have shown that elevated fasting blood glucose (FBG), whether a patient has been diagnosed with diabetes or not, could be a risk factor for severe illness in patients with COVID-19. Authors of the first study, based on patients at a hospital in Guangzhou, Guangdong, China and published in Diabetes, Obesity and Metabolism, found an FBG of ≥6.23 mmol/L to be an optimal cutoff for poor prognosis within 30 days of hospital admission, including acute respiratory distress syndrome, ICU admission, septic shock, multiple-organ dysfunction, or death. The authors of the second study, conducted at the same hospital in China and published in the Journal of Infection, called elevated FBG “a crucial risk factor for critical illness in COVID-19 patients.” Patients who became critically ill with COVID-19 had an average FBG of 7.4 mmol/L, compared with an average FGB of 5.7 mmol/L in COVID-19 patients who were not deemed critical. The results should prompt urgent care providers to counsel patients with elevated FBG to make an effort to lower their blood glucose levels (such as through lifestyle modification and adherence to any medication regimen they’ve been prescribed), but also to take steps recommended by the Centers for Disease Control and Compliance to avoid infection with COVID-19.