Not Just About Blood Sugar: 'He Died Because He Lost His Job'

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This transcript has been edited for clarity.

This is another update on the coronavirus pandemic and how it affects people with diabetes.

First, in terms of most of the publications about diabetes and SARS-CoV-2, there are more and more studies describing hospitalized patients from around the world, and they show that diabetes is a risk factor for worse outcomes. We know that. But what really matters to me is whether I can do anything to mitigate the risk.

One study, published in Cell Metabolism, actually looked at glycemic control and its impact on outcomes. This was a retrospective analysis of patients with diabetes admitted to hospitals in Hubei Province, China. The authors included 7337 cases of COVID-19, of which 952 had preexisting type 2 diabetes. As others have found, those with diabetes required more procedures, had worse outcomes, and had a higher mortality than those without diabetes.

The people with diabetes were then divided into two groups: 282 people with well-controlled diabetes versus 528 whose disease was considered poorly controlled. They determined this in an unusual way. Designations of poorly controlled versus well controlled were made on the basis of