Persons with diabetes are prone to develop infections; the healing process is also delayed in them. Reiterating this, a new prospective study has shown that people with diabetes are at a higher risk for hospitalization for any infection.

Researchers at the Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health evaluated more than 12,000 adults, aged 45–64 years from the Atherosclerosis Risk in Communities (ARIC) study. They were recruited between 1987 and 1989 and were followed up until 2019 for almost three decades. A total of 10,894 participants were free of diabetes, while 1485 had diabetes. Results of the study are published in the journal Diabetologia.

The study found a 67% higher risk for infection-related hospitalization compared with adults without diabetes over the course of nearly 30 years (HR 1.67). A major share of this was contributed to by a six-fold increased risk for foot infections (HR 5.99). Besides foot infections, the diabetic population was also vulnerable to risk of other infections such as respiratory infections (HR 1.49), urinary tract infection (HR 1.58), sepsis (HR 1.92) and postoperative infections (HR 1.95) that required hospitalizations. Diabetes was more strongly associated with hospitalisation for infection in younger participants.

During follow-up, hospital discharge records showed 4229 episodes of hospitalizations due to injection. Individuals with baseline diabetes had an infection rate of 25.4 per 1,000 person-years compared with 15.2 per 1,000 person-years for those without diabetes.

This study has shown a significant association with infection-related hospitalisation in persons with diabetes. This underscores the need to assess them on follow-up visits to prevent infections and also their timely treatment to reduce infection-related morbidity and mortality. This study assumes importance given the ongoing Covid-19 pandemic as people with diabetes have been shown to have severe disease and serious COVID-19-related complications.

(Source: Medpage Today August 5, 2021 & Diabetologia, August 4, 2021)