Diabetes and COVID-19

By: Dr. Reem Al-Hassani

Assistant Professor of Animal Physiology

Current studies indicate that people with diabetes are more likely to have COVID-19 complications and an increased mortality risk compared to healthy people. This is due to several reasons, the most important of which is that high blood sugar inside a person with diabetes leads to hyperinsulinemia, autonomic neuropathy, oxidative stress, and microangiopathy in the kidneys and lungs. This leads to irregular immune responses.

When diabetics are infected with COVID-19, the epithelial cells in the airways are infected with the virus, where the virus multiplies due to finding the appropriate environment. This leads to their programmed death, which increases the secretion of cytokines. This phenomena is called a cytokine storm that leads to severe infections and causes acute respiratory distress syndrome and shock, which ultimately leads to organ failure and death.

In addition to the aforementioned pulmonary effect, there is an effect on the blood. This is evident in that insulin resistance in the blood causes an imbalance in the circulatory system that leads to platelet aggregation as well as clotting in the blood with the formation of blood clots, which makes the matter even worse.