02/16/2023

Study Says Omicron Can Raise the Risk of Diabetes

COVID-19 seems to know no bounds

People infected with COVID-19 during the Omicron era face an increased risk of diabetes and related diseases, according to a study showing that long-term dangers of the virus have persisted since the strain began spreading.

Rates of newly diagnosed diabetes, high blood pressure and elevated cholesterol were higher in the 90 days after COVID infection than the period before, according to a study of almost 24,000 patients during the period of Omicron’s dominance from researchers at Cedars-Sinai Medical Center in Los Angeles, and vaccination appeared to help reduce these risks.

Omicron has been seen as a milder version of COVID compared with earlier strains, leading to lower rates of hospitalization and death than Delta and the strain that first emerged from China in early 2020. Since Omicron began sweeping the world in late 2021, the vast majority of U.S. infections have been traced to the variant and its descendants, reinforcing the importance of watching for diabetes in people recovering from COVID.

Please select this link to read the complete article from TIME.