CLEVELAND, Ohio—An analysis of the electronic medical records of over 1 million children worldwide suggests that COVID-19 infection may make children more susceptible to developing type 1 diabetes, say researchers at Case Western Reserve University School of Medicine.
The study found that there was a 72% increase in the number of type 1 diabetes diagnoses of people under age 18 in the six months following a confirmed case of COVID-19, compared with children who had another type of respiratory infection.
Unlike type 2 diabetes, which is the result of decreased sensitivity to insulin and occurs primarily in adults, type 1 diabetes is more frequently diagnosed in children and occurs when the body’s immune system attacks and destroys the insulin producing cells of the pancreas.
“Type 1 diabetes is considered an autoimmune disease,” said Pamela Davis, a professor of medicine at CWRU School of Medicine and one of the study’s authors. “COVID has been suggested to increase autoimmune responses, and our present finding reinforces that suggestion.”
Age was not a significant factor in the results. The diabetes risk in younger children, from birth to 9 years of age, was similar to that in older children aged 10 to 18.
“Families with high risk of type 1 diabetes in their children should be especially alert for symptoms of diabetes following COVID, and pediatricians should be alert for an influx of new cases of type 1 diabetes, especially since the omicron variant of COVID spreads so rapidly among children,” Davis said.
“We may see a substantial increase in this disease in the coming months to years. Type 1 diabetes is a lifelong challenge for those who have it, and increased incidence represents substantial numbers of children afflicted.”
Further research is needed to determine which children are most vulnerable, whether the increased risk of diabetes persists beyond 6 months, and how to treat COVID-19 associated type 1 diabetes in children, said co-author Rong Xu, a CWRU professor of biomedical informatics.
“We are also investigating possible changes in development of type 2 diabetes in children following SARS-CoV2 infection,” Xu said.
About 187,000 people under 20 live with type 1 diabetes nationally, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.
The conclusions were published Friday in the Journal of the American Medical Association Network Open.