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WEDNESDAY, May 6, 2020 (HealthDay News) — For patients with COVID-19 and type 2 diabetes (T2D), well-controlled blood glucose (BG) is associated with lower mortality during hospitalization, according to a study published online May 1 in Cell Metabolism<\/i>.<\/p>\n
Lihua Zhu, Ph.D., from the Renmin Hospital of Wuhan University in China, and colleagues performed a retrospective multicentered study of 7,337 patients with COVID-19 in Hubei Province, China, of whom 952 had preexisting T2D. The authors sought to examine the impact of BG control on the degree of required medical interventions and mortality.<\/p>\n
The researchers found that compared with those without diabetes, patients with T2D required more medical interventions and had significantly higher mortality (7.8 versus 2.7 percent; adjusted hazard ratio, 1.49) and multiple organ injury. Well-controlled BG (glycemic variability within 3.9 to 10.0 mmol\/L) correlated with lower mortality during hospitalization compared with poorly controlled BG (upper limit of glycemic variability exceeding 10.0 mmol\/L; adjusted hazard ratio, 0.14).<\/p>\n
“We were surprised to see such favorable outcomes in [the] well-controlled blood glucose group among patients with COVID-19 and pre-existing type 2 diabetes,” a coauthor said in a statement. “Considering that people with diabetes had much higher risk for death and various complications, and there are no specific drugs for COVID-19, our findings indicate that controlling blood glucose well may act as an effective auxiliary approach to improve the prognosis of patients with COVID-19 and pre-existing diabetes.”<\/p>\n