'Everyone With Diabetes' Must Prepare for COVID-19

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This transcript has been edited for clarity.

I've been getting many calls from my patients with diabetes who are understandably concerned about COVID-19 and their risk, so I thought this would be an important topic for us to discuss.

I'm not an infectious disease specialist, so I'm not going to talk specifically about the virus, though I do try to keep up on the literature so I can help our patients avoid infection. Every night, I look for primary studies that have been published and then I review the CDC recommendations. I want to understand what patients are hearing and I want to follow the recommendations to help my patients avoid becoming ill.

People commonly hear that diabetes is a risk factor for the worst outcomes for death. Understandably, this makes people with diabetes frightened. What do we know about infections in patients with diabetes?

No Clear Answers

The literature is a bit contradictory and we don't do randomized controlled studies in this area. Overall, the literature suggests that people with diabetes get infections at a somewhat higher rate than those who do not have diabetes and can often have poorer outcomes.