COVID-19 and diabetes for World Diabetes Day 2021, a pandemic update

For World Diabetes Day, I'm re-examining why coronavirus is more dangerous for diabetics, the topic of the eighth most read entry posted during the tenth year of this blog. I begin with Reuters explaining COVID and diabetes: How the pandemic laid bare America’s diabetes crisis from August 2021.

COVID-19 has torn a particularly lethal path through the one in 10 Americans with diabetes, including many who never caught the virus. That's because when the pandemic hit, people with the chronic disease were already in worse shape than in years.

If I hadn't kept up my diabetes treatment regimen, I could have been one of these three unfortunate people. Their stories help explain why there have been so many excess deaths not attributable to the disease during the pandemic. They also serve as examples for two of Commoner's Laws: Everything is connected to everything else and there is no free lunch. All of the systems in our body are connected to each other and what we do to or for one system will have effects on the rest. Also, isolating ourselves to protect us from the pandemic comes at a price, which we have to pay one way or another, either in continuing our treatment during the pandemic, which I did, or the death and disability described by Reuters.

The three subjects of the Reuters report suffered indirectly from the pandemic, as they didn't catch the disease. KHOU in Houston reported on the effects of catching COVID-19 on diabetics in Keeping diabetes under control during COVID-19 pandemic last December.

Data show diabetics have more severe cases of COVID-19. Doctors say it's more important than ever to keep your diabetes under control.

My wife mentioned how dexamethazone increases blood glucose just last night, so seeing it being mentioned in this video made an impression. Again, there is no free lunch.

Dr. Philip Orlander described how some COVID-19 patients developed diabetes after their infections. Bloomberg Quicktake: Now described that more fully in Doctors Find That Covid Spurs Diabetes: Study from May 2021.

Among Covid-19’s many ripple effects, the worsening of the global diabetes burden could carry a heavy public-health toll. The underlying mechanisms stoking new-onset diabetes aren’t clear, though some doctors suspect the SARS-CoV-2 virus may damage the pancreas, the gland that makes insulin which is needed to convert blood-sugar into energy. Sedentary lifestyles brought on by lockdowns could also be playing a role, as might late diagnoses after people avoided doctors’ offices. Even some children’s mild coronavirus cases can be followed by the swift onset of diabetes, scientists found.

Yikes! That's a frightening example of "everything is connected to everything else." The more I learn about SARS-CoV-2, the scarier the virus becomes!

I close by wishing my readers a safe and healthy World Diabetes Day and telling them to stay tuned for America Recycles Day.