COVID-19 is linked to more diabetes diagnoses among kids, CDC study finds

A recent study from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention shows that COVID-19 may be linked to a lifelong health problem for some children who contract the disease. The study, published on January 7, found that children and teens are more likely to be diagnosed with diabetes a month or more after their COVID infection, compared to those who did not have COVID. 

Using two different health databases, IQVIA and HealthVerity, researchers evaluated data from thousands of patients younger than 18 between March 1, 2020 and February 26, 2021, comparing those who had been diagnosed with COVID-19 to those who had a pre-pandemic, non-COVID respiratory infection, and also to those who had neither. 

They found that children in the IQVIA database diagnosed with COVID-19 during that time were 166% more likely than those who did not have COVID to be diagnosed later with diabetes. In the HealthVerity database, children with COVID were 31% more likely to get a new diabetes diagnosis.