November is National Diabetes Month

The rise in the number of cases of diabetes in recent years has been described as an epidemic. However, the pandemic of COVID remains the focus of medical news as it has for the last 2 years. There is a deadly interaction between these two medical conditions.

Forty percent of all people dying from COVID have diabetes. Persons with either undiagnosed or untreated diabetes that do survive, require longer hospitalizations and suffer more complications in the course of treating their COVID infections than those who are diagnosed and are receiving proper diabetes treatment. About 1 in 4 persons with diabetes do not know that they have it. This represents about 7.3 million adults.

Obesity is a major contributor to the diabetes epidemic. Being overweight (having a body mass index of 25 or more) or obese (having a body mass index of 30 or more) has its own adverse effects on COVID outcomes even in the absence of diabetes. Persons that are overweight or obese who get COVID are more likely to require hospitalization, to be admitted to the intensive care unit, to be placed on mechanical ventilation and die from the infection. The increase risk is greater in persons over age 65 years but is significant regardless of age. Losing weight is about much more than physical appearance. You can calculate your body mass index by entering your height and weight in an online calculator at: https://www.calculator.net/bmi-calculator.html.

How well blood glucose is controlled also influences outcomes from COVID. Control prior to infection predicts clinical outcomes if you get the infection and require hospitalization. Patients had the best outcomes if their home fasting blood glucose values prior to hospitalization were between 100 mg/dl and 120 mg/dl. The higher the fasting values at home, more likely complications occurred in the hospital. Help protect yourself by achieving and maintaining good control of your blood glucose levels. Risk of hospitalization and death are higher in persons whose Hemoglobin A1c is over 7%.

While you are in the hospital, control of the blood glucose values is even more important. Patients with average glucose values of 160 mg/dl while in the hospital had better outcomes than those with higher levels – especially with average glucose leveIs over 180 mg/dl. If you go to the hospital, talk with your doctors about their plan to monitor and control your glucose levels. You may be allowed or even encouraged to bring your meter with you to the hospital if are admitted for treatment. The Food and Drug Administration has approved use of home glucose meters in the hospital.

In summary, please do the following. If you are overweight, work on reducing your weight. If you think you may have undiagnosed diabetes, talk to your provider about your risk factors and getting tested. If you have diabetes, work with your providers to get your glucose values under control (A1c under 7%). If you require hospitalization, talk with your doctors about controlling your diabetes in the hospital.