Increased incidence of type 1 diabetes during COVID -19 pandemic is not a direct effect of recent COVID -19 infection

A recent paper in the journal Diabetes Care by researchers at the Centre for Genomic & Experimental Medicine reports that although the incidence of type 1 diabetes in young people increased sharply at the onset of the COVID -19 pandemic, this was not a direct effect of the COVID -19 infection itself.

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The work of Professor Helen Colhoun's and Professor Paul McKeigue's groups shows that other aspects of the pandemic may also have led to the increase, including changing patterns of social mixing that have altered the epidemiology of other infections associated with type 1 diabetes. The study linked data on all COVID -19 infections in Scotland to the Scottish Diabetes Registry SCI -diabetes by linking electronic health records.

Previous reports suggest that COVID -19 infection can lead directly to type 1 diabetes, causing anxiety and concern among patients and diabetes charities.

The exact timing of onset of diabetes associated with COVID -19 infection could not be accurately determined in these studies. The comprehensive system of health records in Scotland enabled us to pinpoint this - we found that there was no evidence that infection with COVID -19 itself led to diabetes - instead it's clear that there was simply more testing for COVID -19 and its accidental discovery around the time of the onset of type 1 diabetes.

At the same time, we found that the incidence of type 1 diabetes in younger people increased by 20% in the first year of the pandemic, likely due to altered social mixing that disrupted the epidemiology of other infections associated with type 1 diabetes.