The excess insulin requirement in severe COVID‐19 compared to non‐COVID‐19 viral pneumonitis is related to the severity of respiratory failure and pre‐existing diabetes
- Resource Type
- Authors
- Bogdan Petrisor; Samuel M. Lockhart; Andrew Conway Morris; Razeen Mahroof; Harry Griffiths; Vishakha Bansiya; Julia Calvo-Latorre; Ammara Usman; Laura Heales
- Source
- Endocrinology, Diabetes & Metabolism
Endocrinology, Diabetes & Metabolism, Vol 4, Iss 3, Pp n/a-n/a (2021)
- Subject
- Male
medicine.medical_specialty
ORIGINAL RESEARCH ARTICLE
medicine.medical_treatment
Endocrinology, Diabetes and Metabolism
education
stress hyperglycaemia
Disease
Single Center
Diseases of the endocrine glands. Clinical endocrinology
law.invention
Insulin resistance
COVID‐19
law
insulin resistance
Diabetes mellitus
Internal medicine
Humans
Hypoglycemic Agents
Insulin
Medicine
health care economics and organizations
Dose-Response Relationship, Drug
diabetes
business.industry
COVID-19
Retrospective cohort study
RC648-665
medicine.disease
Intensive care unit
ORIGINAL RESEARCH ARTICLES
Diabetes Mellitus, Type 1
Diabetes Mellitus, Type 2
Respiratory failure
Cohort
Female
Respiratory Insufficiency
business
- Language
- English
- ISSN
- 2398-9238
Funder: National Institute of Health Research Academic Clinical Fellowship
Introduction: Severe COVID‐19 has been anecdotally associated with high insulin requirements. It has been proposed that this may be driven by a direct diabetogenic effect of the virus that is unique to SARS‐CoV‐2, but evidence to support this is limited. To explore this, we compared insulin requirements in patients with severe COVID‐19 and non‐COVID‐19 viral pneumonitis. Methods: This is a retrospective cohort study of patients with severe COVID‐19 admitted to our intensive care unit between March and June 2020. A historical control cohort of non‐COVID‐19 viral pneumonitis patients was identified from routinely collected audit data. Results: Insulin requirements were similar in patients with COVID‐19 and non‐COVID‐19 viral pneumonitis after adjustment for pre‐existing diabetes and severity of respiratory failure. Conclusions: In this single‐centre study, we could not find evidence of a unique diabetogenic effect of COVID‐19. We suggest that high insulin requirements in this disease relate to its propensity to cause severe respiratory failure in patients with pre‐existing metabolic disease.