A new study suggests there could be a link between COVID-19 and the development of type 1 diabetes in children.
An article published in Diabetes Care reports that 30 children in five paediatric inpatient units from four north-west London Trusts presented with new-onset type 1 diabetes during the peak of the pandemic, approximately double the number of cases typically seen in this period in previous years, with clusters of cases in two of the hospitals.
Twenty-one children were tested for COVID-19 or had antibody tests. Five children with newly diagnosed diabetes had an evidence of past or current coronavirus infection. Seventy per cent of the children with new-onset diabetes in the study presented with diabetic ketoacidosis (DKA). Over 52 per cent of the children had severe DKA.
The study, led by clinicians at Imperial College Healthcare NHS Trust and researchers at Imperial College London, is the first to find a possible link between COVID-19 and new-onset type 1 diabetes in children.
Previous reports from China and Italy found a number of children presenting with new-onset type 1 diabetes during the COVID-19 pandemic, apparently unrelated to infection. This prompted concerns of delayed presentation, but the researchers at Imperial College suggest that the SARS-CoV-2 spike protein might be able to attack and destroy insulin-making cells in the pancreas.
Karen Logan at Imperial College Healthcare NHS Trust and supervising author of the study said: “It appears that children are at low risk of developing serious cases of COVID-19. However, we do need to consider potential health complications following exposure to the virus in children."
“Our analysis shows that during the peak of the pandemic the number of new cases of type 1 diabetes in children was unusually high in two of the hospitals in northwest London compared to previous years, and when we investigated further, some of these children had active coronavirus or had previously been exposed to the virus."
Dr Logan acknowledges that the study had some limitations and that further research is needed, but she advised that clinicians should be mindful of this potential link.
