Diabetes among children and adolescents increased during COVID-19 pandemic
Dec 11, 2024
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Until now, studies on changes in the incidence of diabetes in children and adolescents in Asia during the COVID-19 pandemic have been lacking, with conflicting findings on the association between COVID-19 and the incidence of diabetes in children and adolescents in particular.
Meanwhile, Professor Lee Da-hye of the Department of Pediatrics and Adolescents at Chung-Ang University Hospital, Professor Park Jae-hyun of the Department of Diagnostic Test Medicine at Seoul National University Hospital, Professor Kim Hwa-young of the Department of Pediatrics at Bundang Seoul National University Hospital, and Professor Kim Jae-hyun of the Department of Pediatrics and Adolescents at Korea University Ansan Hospital (co-author Professor Park Ji-young) recently published a research paper titled 「New-onset Type 1 and Type 2 Diabetes among Korean Youth During the COVID-19 Pandemic」.
The research team analyzed 13,639 patients who were first diagnosed with type 1 and type 2 diabetes among children and adolescents under the age of 20 using big data from the Health Insurance Review and Assessment Service from January 2017 to February 2022.
As a result, it was confirmed that type 1 diabetes increased 1.19 times and type 2 diabetes increased 1.41 times in children and adolescents under the age of 20 during the post-pandemic period from 2020 to 2022 compared to 2017 to 2019 before the COVID-19 pandemic.
In particular, in 2020, the first year of the pandemic, the comorbidities for acute complications 'diabetic ketoacidosis' increased from 31.3% to 42.8% in type 1 diabetes and from 2.9% to 6.0% in type 2 diabetes, but recovered to previous levels in the second year to 34.5% and 3.2%, respectively.
However, the rate of ICU admission in the event of diabetic ketoacidosis in type 1 diabetes continued to increase from 8.3% before the pandemic to 14.3% in the first year after the pandemic and 13.1% in the second year.
Meanwhile, during the time when PCR testing was essential for the diagnosis of COVID-19 (March 2020 to February 2022), there was no significant difference in the incidence of diabetes in pediatric and non-infected patients with COVID-19.
This is the first Asian country-based study to confirm that the incidence and severity of type 1 and type 2 diabetes in Korean children and adolescents increased during the COVID-19 pandemic in this study.
Professor Lee Da-hye of the Department of Pediatrics and Adolescents at Chung-Ang University Hospital confirmed that the study had a long-term effect on diabetes in children and adolescents not only in the first year of the COVID-19 pandemic but also in the second year", "It is estimated that environmental factors related to the pandemic, such as social distancing, reduced physical activity, and increased obesity, played a major role in the development of diabetes, rather than the direct impact of COVID-19."."
Professor Park Jae-hyun of the Department of Diagnostic Laboratory Medicine at Seoul National University Hospital then said, `We hope that this study will provide a basis for establishing policies on diabetes prevention and management and suggest ways to cope with the public health crisis in the future," he said.
Meanwhile, this research paper was recently published in the world's most prestigious American Medical Association's Pediatric Science Journal 'JAMA Pediatrics'.
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This article was translated by Naver AI translator.
