COVID-19: People With Diabetes Need To Be Extra Careful Of Coronavirus, Study Claims
This is according to Dr Shi Liu, from Wuhan University. Researchers claim that COVID-19 in a human¡¯s body increases glucose metabolism -- a phenomenon called ¡®cytokine storm¡¯ that causes a ton of immune cells to get produced.
COVID-19 has truly wreaked havoc on our world. Everyone is taking up measures to prevent themselves from contracting the novel coronavirus.
Reuters
Last week we came across a study that revealed how smokers are more susceptible to contracting COVID-19, and now a new study (published in Science Advances) reveals that people with diabetes have a higher risk of dying if they¡¯ve been contracted with COVID-19.
This is according to Dr Shi Liu, from Wuhan University. Researchers claim that COVID-19 in a human¡¯s body increases glucose metabolism -- a phenomenon called ¡®cytokine storm¡¯ that causes a ton of immune cells to get produced.
Researchers claim that this spike usually occurs in the lungs and raises the risk of a diabetic patient dying.
Cytokines are basically the activating compounds of immune cells and when a patient catches flu or in this case, COVID-19, there is a dramatic increase in the number of cytokines.
Researchers wanted to learn more about this behaviour, so they conducted experiments on mice.
They injected lab rodents with glucosamine and saw a considerable amount of cytokines than those that weren¡¯t given any.
They also analysed glucose levels in blood samples from patients diagnosed with flu and compared them to samples from healthy people. The samples were collected from volunteers between 2017 and 2019.
Reuters
Through this, they wre able to identify a chemical path which metabolises glucose as playing an essential role in cytokine storms triggered by the flu virus.
According to Liu, ¡°Glucose serves as a major nutrient that fuels cellular metabolic activities. Glucose metabolism and ]inflammatory cytokine signal network evolved together. Nevertheless, it remains unclear whether the two systems interact with each other during flu infection.
¡°In this study, we identified a previously undescribed mechanism of flu-regulated cytokine storm, in which flu induces cytokine storm by increasing glucose metabolism. Although more research is needed to understand the delicate regulatory mechanisms between flu-induced cytokine storm and glucose metabolism, our current findings may provide a potential target for the treatment of flu infection in the future.¡±
