COVID-19 may accelerate the development of type 1 diabetes in kids

Embargoed until:

Publicly released:

2024-07-16 01:00

Peer-reviewedObservational studyCase studyPeopleWhat do these mean?Peer-reviewed: This work was reviewed and scrutinised by relevant independent experts.Observational study: A study in which the subject is observed to see if there is a relationship between two or more things (eg: the consumption of diet drinks and obesity). Observational studies cannot prove that one thing causes another, only that they are linked.Case study: A study involving observations of a single patient or group of patients.People: This is a study based on research using people.

Catching COVID-19 may speed up the development of type 1 diabetes in children, according to German researchers. They studied 591 kids with presymptomatic type 1 diabetes between 2015 and 2023. They followed 358 kids up until March 2020, or before the pandemic, and 396 after March 2020, or during the pandemic. During the pre-pandemic period, 57 kids progressed to type 1 diabetes, while during the pandemic period, 113 kids progressed, so the rate roughly doubled after COVID-19 arrived. Of the 396 participants followed up since the pandemic, 353 had COVID-19 infection information. Of these, 236 had a COVID-19 infection, the scientists say. Crunching the numbers, they found having had COVID-19 roughly doubled the incidence of progression from asymptomatic to full-blown type 1 diabetes, so the accelerated progression only happened in kids with COVID-19. Further studies are required to determine whether COVID-19 also accelerates progression to type 1 diabetes in adults, the scientists say.

Journal/conference: JAMA

Link to research (DOI): 10.1001/jama.2024.11174

Organisation/s: German Center for Environmental Health, Germany

Funder: This work was supported by grants KKZ01KX1818 from the
Federal Ministry of Education and Research (BMBF), G-2017PG-T1D023 from
the Leona M. and Harry B. Helmsley Charitable Trust, NNF22SA0081044 from
the Novo Nordisk Foundation (the 2022 EASD-Novo Nordisk Foundation
Diabetes Prize for Excellence); and a grant from the Deutscher Diabetiker Bund.
The Fr1da study was also supported by grants 1-SRA-2014–310-M-R,
3-SRA-2015–72-M-R, 3-SRA-2019–718-Q-R from JDRF International, HMGU
2014.01 and HMGU 2016.01 from LifeScience Stiftung, G-1911–3274 from the
Leona M. and Harry B. Helmsley Charitable Trust, and from the German Center
for Diabetes Research.

Media release

From: JAMA

About The Study: Follow-up of youth with pre-symptomatic type 1 diabetes demonstrated that the COVID-19 pandemic was associated with an accelerated progression to clinical disease and that this acceleration was confined to those with COVID-19. Further studies are required to determine whether COVID-19 also accelerates progression to type 1 diabetes in adults and whether vaccination and monitoring for COVID-19 symptoms should be considered for individuals with pre-symptomatic type 1 diabetes. 

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